300 Landscape- Gardening applied to Cemeteries. 



and from the roof to the ground 6 ft. In a funeral with this machine, no hired 

 men are necessary ; the man who precedes the procession should be one of 

 the mourners, or the joiner who made the coffin, and the labour of drawing 

 should be shared by the whole in turns. Persons who have not attended a 

 walking funeral are not likely to be aware, not only of the fatigue to the 

 bearers and attendants, but of the very disagreeable effects, more especially to 

 the man at the head, whose head and shoulders are under the pall, of the 

 smell, and sometimes the moisture, proceeding from the coffin. Could Mr. 

 Jukes's truck-hearse, therefore, be generally introduced, not only in towns, but 

 in country parishes, it would be a great blessing to the poor. The expense of 

 funerals to the poor might be still farther diminished by the use of the hand- 

 bier, a figure of which will hereafter be given, as practised formerly in 

 Scotland, and as it still is in various parts of the Continent, more par- 

 ticularly in Poland. In the latter country the body is put in a coffin of 

 coarse boards, in which it is carried to the church, placed on a bier, and a 

 bottomless coffin of a superior description placed over it. The service being 

 read, two of the mourners carry the bier to the side of the grave, when, two 

 cords being introduced under the coffin, the whole is lowered to the bottom 

 of the grave, while tlie case is drawn up by two back cords which are at- 

 tached to its top.* These innovations will probably be resisted at first, 

 because, among other things, they would render unnecessary some of the under- 

 taker's men-|-; but, as mankind cease to become slaves of custom, various 



* We saw a funeral performed in this way in the neighbourhood of War- 

 saw, in June, 1813. The body was not buried in the churchyard, but in the 

 margin of a wheat field, the son of the deceased not being able, as we were 

 informed, to pay the churchyard fees. In Rome, and some other cities of 

 Italy, the body is placed in a stone sarcophagus, while the funeral ceremonies 

 are performed ; after which it is deposited, sometimes only for a day or two, 

 and in the cases of peo[)le of greater rank for some weeks, in a vault or cata- 

 comb : it is then taken out and buried in the free soil. 



-f- People are not generally aware that the origin and type of the array of 

 funerals commonly made by undertakers is strictly the heraldic array of 

 a baronial funeral, or the funeral of persons entitled to coat armour, all of 

 which were attended by heralds ; the two men who stand at the doors being 

 supposed to be the two porters of the castle, with their staves in black ; the 

 man who heads the procession, wearing a scarf, being a representative of a 

 herald at arms ; the man who carries a plume of feathers on his head being 

 an esquire, who bears the tabard of arms, including the shield, sword, helmet, 

 gauntlet, and casque, with its plume of feathers ; the pall-bearers, with batons, 

 being representatives of knights-companions at arms; the men walking with 

 wands being supposed to re[)resent gentlemen ushers, with their wands. 



The cost of the men who bear staves covered with black, and who re- 

 present tlie two porters of the castle, varies from 18s. to 30?.; and the man 

 who heads the procession, representing the herald at arras, costs from 21. 1 Is. 6d. 

 to 3/. 3s., and so on. In general the poorest person does not fool away less 

 than 3/. 3s. for attendants of this kind. (E.C.S.) In the case of truck-hearses 

 and hand-biers, all these expenses might be spared, by the mourners acting in 

 succession as the leader or herald ; or dispensing with the leader altogether, 

 as is generally the case in Scotland. At the funerals of persons of rank, 

 heralds and hired mourners have in every age attended, and formed an array 

 of pomp and simulated grief ; but the practice seems inconsistent with real 

 sorrow, and should therefore be rejected by people of common sense. " If, 

 says a correspondent, " the poor were v/ise, their funerals would be as simple 

 as possible : a plain coffin, borne by near n)ale relations, and followed by the 

 family and friends of the deceased in decent mourning, but without any of 

 the undertaker's trappings on their persons, would be sufficient. The poor 

 like funeral pomp because the rich like it; forgetting that during Ufe the con- 



