“Burlington cemetery is fast becoming not a cemetery
but a chronic resort for loafers.”
Hamilton Spectator. May 28, 1883 5.5
With the warm spring weather, a problem
relating to the cemetery on the Burlington Heights became very noticeable.
On Sunday, May 27, 1883 a Spectator reporter
was sent out York street to investigate:
“Sunday afternoons, empty headed giggling
girls wander around the walks, plucking flowers from the graves, laughing and
behaving generally in a manner that on the streets would render them liable to
arrest.” 5.5
The reporter stated emphatically that the
problem was not only with the behavior of the young ladies:
“On the grass are stretched the forms of
young men, chewing tobacco, smoking and sending the foul spit, reeking with the
flavor of villainous oaths, over the hallowed resting places of our dead.” 5.5
The reporter spoke to some ladies who often went
to the cemetery to visiting the graves of lost loved ones, but who had become victims
of the degenerated conditions at the cemetery:
“The ladies are almost sure to be insulted.
The young blackguards, who sprawl over the place, hurl indecent and insulting
words to them as they pass. The living love to go to their dead to garnish
their graves with flowers; to place loving remembrances on the mounds under
which lie so much that was near and dear to them. But they cannot do it when,
in doing so, they are laid open to insult and run the chance of having the
blush of shame brought to their cheeks by the indecent words of some
foul-mouthed loafer.” 5.5
The reporter emphasized that it was not all
the young ladies and men who were conducting themselves so poorly, but that a
great majority of the young people at the cemetery on Sundays did act “in a
manner that makes one wonder if the rising generation has no respect for death
or the remembrances of it that a graveyard is sure to bring.”
After rhetorically asking if there were no
remedy for the situation, the reporter answered his own question as follows:
“Some time ago, the plan of issuing tickets
to respectable parties and of only allowing the holders of these tickets in was
suggested. Why should it not be not be introduced now? It may give the
caretaker some extra trouble, it is true; but are the living to show no reverence
to the dead?
“Can we stand by complacently and see this
thing go on, week after week, without making some effort to stop it? No ! It is
time for action. Something must be done. Some steps must be taken to render
that place safe for our wives and daughters to visit. If they choose to go to
the city of the dead, they must be protected from insult. It has gone far
enough as it is; a change is need and at once!” 5.5
