OCR Text |
Show e Vandals Raid Catholic Cemetery. The Catholic cemetery at Birch ! Creek, five miles north of Menominee. Mich., was raided recently and thou- sands of dollars' worth of damage Mas done. The work apparently was done by the same gang Njat has wrecked cemeteries during the last two weeks at Ocor.to. Pesiitigo and Oconto Falls, doing do-ing a large' amount of damage at each place. At Birch Creek . all "the Catholic crosses were uprooted, broken to pieces with axes and then placed in a great heap in the center of the cemetery. ceme-tery. Monuments of the most expensive marble, requiring" the strength of many men to move, were tipped over by some unknown means, then smashed and hacked to 'pieces with sledge-hammers. The vandals evidently did their, work with -great dMlberationr-as'the "work bf l . t destruction was awe-inspiring in its completeness. . The first outrage of this kind occurred oc-curred at Oconto and it was regarded as the work of an insane man. Little attention was paid to it. A few days later, . however, a similar outrage took place at Oconto Falls, followed by the wrecking of Catholic monuments at Pcshtimingo. and the people have become be-come deeply, aroused. It is reported that several cemeteries in this region are even now protected by armed guards, who are. instructed to use their rifles at the first" sign of vandals. It is' a noteworthy fact that in every cemetery visited no Protestant grave, has been molested, but every Catholic emblem and symbol has been viciously destroyed or mutilated. |