Our Graveyards.

With great reluctance we revert to this subject again.  Much has already been said, through our paper, about the condition of our graveyards, and our people urged to bestow some attention upon them, but as far as we have been able to discover, to no purpose whatsoever.  What a crying shame it is to the people of Cartersville and vicinity, that our grave yards are so neglected.  Within their sacred precincts lies entombed the dearest worldly objects of our hearts affections – the precious dust of our departed loved ones.  How seldom do we visit their silent abodes, and water with our tears the little flowers that spring up to beautify and adorn their final resting places, to say nothing of planting them there.  In many instances not even a head or foot-stone marks the spot where sleeps their sacred ashes.  No willows hang their weeping boughs above them in token of our sympathies, no evergreens to signify that though dead they are still living in our affections –no monument – no marble slab – no vault –no charnel house, no pailings—no pen, no enclosure, whatever mark their graves.  Time with her effacing finger, has well nigh obliterated all traces of the same.  No silent walks nor grassy mounds adorn the city of our dead.  The footprints of the beasts that prowl the forest are often found upon and around these little hillocks, and the few wild flowers of natures planting are nipped with greediness by the same ere they bloom and blossom,.  Have we lost all regard for the dead?  Go and take a peep into our grave yards and what do we see?  What can we see for the brush and bushes, for the thorns and weeds and thistles that overgrow the graves. Ah! What a sad commentary is this upon the intelligence, virtue and refinement of our people.  How long will it be so?  --- May a sense of pride, if nothing else prompt our people to respect the dead, by protecting their graves from the ravages of beasts and the desolations of time.