BURIED ALIVE IN CONCRETE.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 11 September 1912, Page 3

BURIED ALIVE IN CONCRETE.

One of the interesting exhibits of the cement show recently held in New York was the reproduction of an ancient tragedy. In 1535 the Spanish garrison at Oran, in Algiers, captured a tiny Arab child, whom they called Geronimo, after a Christian saint. He was raised as a Christian, but returned to his family while still a boy and lived as a Mohammedan. He joinad the Spaniards again, however, and came back to the faith, but in 1569 was captured by a Moorish corsair while he was on a coasting raid with the Spanish soldiers. He was promised his life if he would return to Mohammedanism, and, refusing to do this was condemned to be buried alive in the concrete wall of the fort which was then "being built at Algiers. His haads were tied behind his back and he was cast, face downward, - into a block of concrete.

In a book of Algiers, written in 1612, by Haido, a Spanish Benedictine missionary, the story of Geronimo was told, along with careful details as to the exact spot of his tomb in the fort wall. Haido adjured the Christian world to conquer Algiers, find the tomb ,and give the martyr Christian burial. In 1854, when the old fort was torn down by the French, Haido's notes were followed in seeking for the body. The concrete block was found and cut open, disclosing the bones of Geronimo and the cavity left by his body. Plaster was then poured into the mold and a cast taken, showing, as history had told, the form of a young man, bound with his arms behind his back.