File:DeWitt Clinton, painted by Samuel Morse, 1826.jpg

Identifier: samuelfbmorsehis01morsuoft (find matches)
Title: Samuel F.B. Morse: his letters and journals. Edited and supplemented by his son Edward Lind Morse; illustrated with reporductions of his paintings and with notes and diagrams bearing on the invention of the telegraph
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Morse, Samuel Finley Breese, 1791-1872 Morse, Edward Lind, 1857-
Subjects: Telegraph
Publisher: Boston Houghton Mifflin
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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lever to raise the stones which covered the vaults.Upon the promise of a few grains the stone of the vaultfor the day was raised, and, with the precaution of hold-ing our kerchiefs to our noses, we looked down into thedark vault. Death is suflficiently terrible in itself, andthe grave in its best form has enough of horror to makethe stoutest heart quail at the thought, but nothingI have seen or read of can equal the Campo Santo forthe most loathsome and disgusting mode of burial. Thehuman carcasses of all ages and sexes are here thrownin together to a depth of, perhaps, twenty feet, withoutcoffins, in heaps, most of them perfectly naked, and leftto corrupt in a mass, like the offal from a slaughter house.So disgusting a spectacle I never witnessed. There werein sight about twenty bodies, men, women, and children.A child of about six years, with beautiful fair hair, hadfallen across the body of a man and lay in the attitudeof sleeping. But I cannot describe the positions of all without
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DE WITT CLINTONPainted by Morse. Property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ITALIAN BEGGARS 369 offence, so I forbear. We were glad to turn away andretrace our steps to our carriage. Never, I believe, inany country, Christian or pagan, is there an instance ofsuch total want of respect for the remains of the dead. On September 5, he again reverts to the universalplague of beggars in Italy: — In passing through the country you may not takenotice of a pretty child or seem pleased with it; so soonas you do the mother will instantly importune you forqualche cosa* for the child. Neither can you ask for acup of cold water at a cottage door, nor ask the way tothe next village, nor even make the slightest inquiry ofa peasant on any subject, but the result will be qualckecosa, signore. The first act which a child is taught inItaly is to hold out its hand to beg. Children too youngto speak I have seen holding out their little hands forthat purpose, and so mechanical is this action that Ihave s

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