The Old (or Southern) Cemetery at the time of its first enclosure was
a short distance outside of the city, though not so far as it ought to
have been; but by degrees the streets have been extended to its very
walls, and property-owners build without hesitation handsome dwelling
houses whose windows look directly down upon that field of corruption,
piously denominated "God's Acre." The New Cemetery, on the north side
of the town, has been in use only five or six years, and was from the
beginning but a block or two removed from the nearest houses. The air
in the vicinity of the Old Cemetery is so laden with the smell of
death that even the natives are aware of it, while strangers generally
avoid a second visit. It is a rule that every seven years a portion of
the ground occupied by rented graves shall be dug over for new
tenants, the partially decayed remains found therein being brought
together and buried again in an indiscriminate heap. This method is
about as bad as it could be, but the graves that are left undisturbed
are not much less harmful to the living. These can be leased for a
period of seventy years, the lease to be renewed if desired, but never
for a longer term than seventy years without renewal. Whole
generations of families are thus buried together, each grave being dug
deep enough to hold several coffins one above another, the last one
coming to within a few feet of the surface.
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