2 34 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
SOME REFLECTIONS UPON MEXICAN BURIAL 
PLACES. 
Apart from the instinct of self-preservation 
which makes us averse to dying anywhere, there 
are various reasons why we are not especially anx- 
ious to die in Mexico. The burial customs of that 
country are not agreeable to Anglo-Saxon notions, 
and the burial places are anything but attractive. 
There are some cemeteries in the world to which 
we may apply the hyperbolical expressions, that 
they “rob death ot some of its terrors,” and that 
they “make one in love with death,” without de- 
priving those expressions of all their meaning. But 
no one who has seen even the finest of Mexican 
burial places would think of using any such language 
in speaking of it. To my mind, the cemeteries I 
saw in the provincial towns invested death with 
added terrors. 
Usually the sites selected for them were the least 
attractive in the neighborhood. They were greatly 
neglected and barren of vegetation, except in the 
more tropical portion of the country, where negrect 
manifested itself in the too rank 
growth of indigenous plants. The 
roads to them were strewn with the 
refuse of the town. And the idea 
conveyed to the visitor was that of 
a mere dumping ground for some- 
thing with which the residents of 
the town were through. Only on 
“A/ Dia de los Muertos (All Souls 
Day, November 2nd.) do the dead 
in them appear to have any rights 
which the living are bound to re- 
spect. Then the graves are pro- 
fusely decorated with flowers; (arti- 
ficial mostly, like the emotions they 
symbolize,) but the effect of this 
spasmodic attempt to show some re- 
spect for the dead was never altogether pleasing. 
The burial places of the larger cities of the Re- 
public, and more particularly of the Capital, are 
more pleasing in their -outward aspect, but upon 
closer examination, even they are almost sure to re- 
veal some feature that will cause disgust. More 
than likely it will be an indication that the ceme- 
teries are but temporary receiving tombs, — -mere 
lodging places, to most of their oc- 
cupants, — to all in fact, excepting 
those whose tombs are distinctly 
marked “In pcrpetuo. ” The right of 
perpetual interment is purchasable, 
but at a price that is prohibitive, 
save to the very wealthy. And all 
tombs not thus inscribed are emp- 
tied of their occupants when their 
leases expire. What becomes of the 
tenants then, it were safer not to in- 
quire. 
The grim humor, characteristic 
of the Mexicans in their contempla- 
tion of death in any of its phases, is 
indicated in an inscription upon a 
grave-marker in Dolores Cemetery, 
near the City of Mexico. ‘‘Here lies buried, for 
ten (io) years the body of , in hope of a glo- 
rious resurrection.” His lease was longer than the 
average. But he had evidently thought that he 
would be quite forgotten by the end of ten years, 
and no one would inquire what became of his dust 
after it was hustled out of its temporary resting 
place to make room for another lodger. 
To be sure, the same thing has been going on 
in this world of ours ever since it was first used as 
a burial place, and every part of its land surface is, 
in all probability, an ancient cemetery. But one 
does not relish having such considerations brought 
out so conspicuously and treated in such a matter- 
‘DOLORES.” 
