JUST STARTING

Southland Times, Issue 20014, 30 October 1926, Page 7

JUST STARTING

SYDNEY’S UNDERGROUND RAILWAY. RIDING UNDER A CEMETERY. Sydney, October 14. When the underground railway is in fullswing—trains are already going into the new stations established in connection with it at “The Central”—the people of Sydney will be travelling, not only under huge buildings, but, on the western side of the city, in the neighbourhood of the Town Hall, under the old cemetery which was once the main burial ground of Sydney, and which dates back more than 100 years The picks of the workmen who are engaged on the railway at that point are constantly laying bare the coffins of an earlier generation, some of them crumbling, others intact, and are occasionally faced with the grim spectacle of a bone or two. As a recognition of the unpleasant nature of their work, the men are getting substantially higher wages while in the neighbourhood of this old burial ground. Every day countless thousands of people walk over this old cemetery, many of them blissfully ignorant of its associations. Before many years now, countless thousands of people will still travel beneath it. The tunnels for the railway are being driven many feet below the old graves. It is not the first time that the forefathers of the hamlet that is to-day Sydney have been rudely disturbed in their last sleep. They were disturbed first by the building of the Town HaH. In digging the foundations, workmen revealed a large number of coffins. Then, in 1904, came the original electric light tunnels, which were driven through that graveyard. Workmen on the occasion came across a whole row of coffins as well as a skull. Silver candlesticks tumbled into the trenches. The picks laid bare even a pair of rusty manacles, grim reminders of the old days. It was this find that gave rise to the view that some convicts had been laid to rest, in this cemetery. It looks as though at least one convict was not allowed to forget his cruel shackles even m the spirit.