The bread-winner has been taken away, and
everything is left to the undertaker. How is a wretched widow in the
midst of her agony, or how are orphan children, deprived of the
protecting hand of a parent, to higgle with a tradesman about the
cheapening of mourning suits, black gloves, weepers, and the other
miserable "trappings of woe"? It is at such a moment, when in thousands
of cases every pound and every shilling is of consequence to the
survivors, that the little ready money they can scrape together is
lavished, without question, upon a vulgar and extravagant piece of
pageantry. Would not the means which have been thus foolishly expended
in paying an empty honour to the dead, be much better applied in being
used for the comfort and maintenance of the living?
The same evil propagates itself downwards in society. The working
classes suffer equally with the middle classes, in proportion to their
means. The average cost of a tradesman's funeral in England is about
fifty pounds; of a mechanic, or labourer, it ranges from five pounds to
ten pounds. In Scotland funeral expenses are considerably lower. The
desire to secure respectable interment for departed relatives, is a
strong and widely-diffused feeling among the labouring population; and
it does them honour. They will subscribe for this purpose, when they
will for no other.
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