Page:Book of Etiquette, Volume 1, by Lilian Eichler.djvu/110

84 Recently a candidate for the Doctor's degree at one of the largest universities in the country chose for the subject of his thesis "Funeral Customs throughout the Ages." It is too large a subject for us to enter into here, and it would profit us little, for the day of hired mourners and splendid pageantry together with obtrusive music and gorgeous flowers is past. Simplicity characterizes the entire service among well-bred people everywhere. The music is soft and the flowers in many cases are sent to the hospitals where they may gladden the sufferers there instead of being allowed to wilt neglected on the grave. More often than not, nowadays, there is added to the notice of the funeral which is inserted in the newspapers the sentence, "Please omit flowers."

Even in the most primitive times it was felt that the dead were going forth on a long, long journey from which they would never return, and their friends wanted to do whatever they could to speed them along the way. It was in this manner that the custom of offering gifts to the dead came about. These gifts range all the way from food and household utensils to clothing, weapons and money. The money was sometimes gold, sometimes silver and sometimes paper, but in most instances it was to serve as a tip to the ferryman who was to row them across the river that separates this life from the next.

Not long ago a New York newspaper devoted a full page in its magazine section to an article called "A King's Mother Buried." The purpose of the article was to reveal forcibly the mockery of some of our elaborate funerals of to-day, and show how they are proportionately no more