Page:From Yauco to Las Marias.djvu/160

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86
YAUCO TO LAS MARIAS

were seized at odd moments with an evident desire to start the war all over again, there was not much difficulty encountered in maintaining a degree of decorum that was highly satisfactory.

The sanitation of the municipality was rigorously inquired into, and regulated; but it is only justice to the residents of Mayaguez to say that little reform was necessary in this regard, as the current statistics of mortality and disease amply proved. Of the few changes made, however, one may be specifically mentioned.

It was the custom whenever a peasant died to carry the corpse to the cemetery in a coffin hired at transient rates, and then, having dumped the deceased into a shallow grave, to return what is facetiously known as the "wooden overcoat" to its original owner, for further service. This was bad enough, considering the danger of infection thus engendered; but much worse remains behind. It seems that the plot of ground reserved for dead paupers was very circumscribed. So it had become necessary to bury four or five