SCENES AT THE CEMETERY.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12469, 19 February 1909, Page 2

SCENES AT THE CEMETERY.

REPREHENSIBLE . EHOTO&Et APH- ' '-. ■ /..ING-.''' :,:._:"-.. „ ' ! : / .. (Specialto "The Colonist.") 1 ■ • ■'.'.■'• •. •,■•. Christchurchi Feb 18. "The shameful scenes at the Wellington cemetery during the burial of the victims ' by the wreck of the. Penguin is a reflection upon, the national char-, actor that one ' does' : not like (says the "Star") but .unfortunately the desecration does not end there. Some of the pictures taken at Terawhiti at the scene !of the wreck by the. photographers exceed the bounds of common decency,and are grossly violatory of all taste and feeling, eveivthe last quiet dignity of death' being denied the" unfortunate victims." /This last indignity might have been spared to them and their: sorrowing relatives and friends., The secure and measureless contentment of the dead saves them this pain of course, but the living, who are left have hearts and feelings which will resent most strongly this outrage upon public decency. The photographs are indescribably mean and indescribably callous. It is difficult to .imagine the ■ frame of mind of those who perpetrated them. It is even more -,*o tfeach the point of view, of the individual who, nine in mouth, has posted himself deliberately in several of the photographs, with the obvious mtentiori of being in the picture. These ghouls might just as well have robbed the bodies of theirpersonal belongings as to have sought to rob them of that Apathetic dignity of deaths which .was 1 their last earthly, possession. .We can ! only< hope that the spirit which I prompted, the taking of the pictures twas bneof misguided professional, en•thusiasmi and that -those who are re- ! sponsible for them will on more mature hasten to destroy.;therer ; co'fds they have made. - We. "cannot j afford that this reproach- against us I as a .people should go abroad in other landsf"' : .■■-.■.