Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1913 — Spain’s Pigeonhole Cemeteries. [ARTICLE]

Spain’s Pigeonhole Cemeteries.

A rather curious—and to our Idea* somewhat unpleasing—custom obtains In Spanish cemeteries. All around the burylng-ground a building is erected whose design can only be compared to that of a nest of pigeon holeß. often seen in post offices and similar Institutions. Each pigeonhole is a tomb. When a person dies his relatives hire a pigeonhole for five years, and the remains are placed inside. The end is then sealed up with mortar and a memorial tablet affixed on the outside. The lease of the pigeonhol may be renewed at the end of the five years, but if it is allowed to expire the tomb is unsealed and the bones removed to make way for another tenant. Need less to say, the plan has some good points. The space taken by the pigeonhole cemetery is comparatively small, as is the cost of burial. Pieturesqueness is, however, conpicuously absent; nor is sentimental grief catered to, as it would be impossible to go and mourn at the grave of s per-son-buried in a pigeonhole so high up that a ladder was needed to reach it To such as prefer the old-fashioned graves the central space of the ground is qffered, but the pigeonholes are the most popular.—The Wide World.