Those Periods Are Set
Apart For Pleasure, And On Important Saint Days Banners And Flags Of
All Nations Are Hung Across The Streets, Or Adorn The Roofs Of The
Flat-Topped Houses, Where The Washing Is At Other Times Dried.
After attending mass in the early morning on these days, the people
give themselves up to revelry and sin at home, or crowd the street-
cars running to the parks and suburbs.
Many with departed relatives
(and who has none?) go to the chacarita, and for a few pesos
bargain with the black-robed priest waiting there, to deliver their
precious dead out of Purgatory. If he sings the prayer the cost is
double, but supposed to be also doubly efficacious. Mothers do not
always inspire filial respect in their offspring, for one young man
declared that he "wanted to get his mother out of Purgatory before he
went in."
A Buenos Ayres missionary writes "There are two large cemeteries
here. From early morn until late at night the people crowd into them,
and I am told there were 100,000 at one time in one of them. November
1 is a special day for releasing thousands of souls out of Purgatory.
We printed thousands of tracts and the workers started out to
distribute them. By ten o'clock six of them were in jail, having been
given into custody by a 'holy father.' They were detained until six
in the evening without food, and then were released through the
efforts of a Methodist minister."
The catechisn reads:
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