PAUPERS' FUNERAL IN SAN FRANCISCO.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 14 July 1880, Page 2

PAUPERS' FUN ERAL IN SAN FRANCISCO.

. + X lie San Francisco corresponds' of thfl New Z-'a'and Herald writes : — Per" Imps it will not be believed that { ere, in the nineteenth century, in the City of Gold, there are. more disgraceful pro* eeeding* with regard to paupers?' funerals titan in any other place in the world. Economy in these cases being the order of (lie day, our wise (?) supervisors, for reasons best known to themselves, decree (hat people dying in the hospitals shall be conveyed to the undertaker's establishment, and buried at his convenience, instead of being intern*! right aw-ny from the place of demise. For this business bids are received, and the present coffin maker who is the lucky holder of tlie j contract bui'ies the dead for the small mm of Idol, 35cents. per body. The sum, I need hardly s:«y, does not pay for i lie wri tche<l interment, but the contract is considered advantageous in other ways. To proceed : The poor dead who are thm bargained for are scarcely cold when they are stripped naked and lnnil'led iiito a coarse, rough box, and earned away in*o Hie c<»fii'i shop, where they are thrown info a celiar, and kept until there is a ' good loa V say six bodies. When such is complete an express waggon is loaded with the terrible freight find parried aw:\y at night to the Pot.Or's field, where ' the boxes are dumped pell mull. A roor woman whose son lay dying at the City Hospital used go every day to see him One night last week ho grew wor>e, and begged the attendants to send for his mother, but they paid no heed t > his w;iil for the one loved f'oim. He died in a few hours, and when the mm her camp next day her boy was dead. She asked to see him, but hi? body had been taken by the coffinmaker. To him she went, wishing to follow the lovd one to the grave, but that was not allowed ; in fact, lie could not say, when he would be buried, as they wltg waiting for ' a lend.' If anyone dies vfho'-e fiiends can :ff>rd to pay 15 dol-5 for burial, the ci'ffi i dealer makes his ■ pr< fit here. An I (his, too, in s\ Chrislian country. W:iy, they pay more for the dispord of defl>") animals than they do fir the dippo«al of the human dead. It is disgusting and brntalising to think upon, and a crying disgrace upon the authorities of the city. Still it happens under the lee of psthees. whose turrets and pinnacles look down loftily v ! >on t !i e horrib'e scenes enacted beneaih th-Tii; under !he eyes of the cormorants who have stripped the people, who often die thus, of every penny, to raise their C istly constructions on the crest <<f ' Nob ' and other hills. While women with down oast eyes veil their debauchery beneath the silken garments of shame and sin, their fellows are huddled into the dark and unsightly bole, w'th* out even a rag to recover their nuked* ness. To cry shame! shame! is a word all (oo mild."