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tabor, a vast crowd.

He was throwing balls high in the air, and receiving them on the point of a stick as they came down-and other dexterous pranks. I wondered how their police tolerated such a breach of decorum in so public a place.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Respect paid the Dead-Solemnity of their Funerals— Precautions against Resurrectionists-Anecdote of the Auld Wives of Leven.

THERE is something very characteristic in the customs of Europe, with regard to the honours paid to the corpse of their dead. In America, and all warm climates, the dead are generally buried almost before they are cold. In Europe they are kept from four to eight days. Relations, and even distant relations, will come forty and often fifty miles to attend the funeral of a friend; and if not invited, it is considered an affront. I remember an instance which happened in Scotland nearly fifty years ago. A cousin of a gentleman's wife died. They resided at a distance of forty miles. When the news arrived of the death and burial of the cousin, the lady was highly offended because she had not been invited to the funeral. She spoke long and loud on the subject. Her husband getting tired of the theme, by way of comfort, at length speaks out. "Never mind my dear," says he, “when you die I wont invite them." The lady looked seriously confounded, but said no more on the subject, being thus most matrimonially comforted.

In Britain, every person attending a funeral comes dressed in a complete suit of black. They walk from the house to the grave in a decent solemn manner. It is rare to see any engaged in conversation. I remember feeling desperately scandalized at the first funeral I saw in New-York; the bell tolling-the sexton first, wearing a blue coat; two ministers and pall-bearers with scarfs; next followed the father and his sons, handkerchiefs to their eyes, and I really believe were in deep sorrow. Then followed about two hundred men, dressed in coats of all colours, talking, smiling, and conversing, with the same indifference as if it had been the 4th of July procession. Says I to myself, the people here must be without feeling and without natural affection.

In London, the funerals, even among the middling classes, make a most imposing show. The hearse and horses, all decorated with large and splendid black and white plumes, all nodding and floating in the breeze; the mourning coaches, the drivers and footmen, the mutes and undertakers, wrapped in black cloth cloaks with white or black bands around their hats and hanging far down between their shoulders; others walking before and on each side of the hearse in the same dress, with long black rods in their hands; and as they are often hired to mourn by those who have no sorrow at the heart, they hang on a face of grief, which is the very picture of melancholy itself. They generally bury between 10 and 11 o'clock A. M. I have seen a splendid funeral procession stopped in the middle of the street for nearly ten minutes by the crowd of carts,

*This was the custom at that period.

wagons, and carriages, which are continually rolling, day and night, over their busy streets.

One morning I met on the pavement in the neighborhood of St. Paul's church, a most solitary funeral procession. It was preceded by two undertakers with their black rods as usual. The pall was supported by six ladies, and followed by only eight more. There was no man following. They seemed to be all nearly or a little over forty years of age; and they were all clad in deep mourning. They looked to me like a company of widows conveying one of their sisters to the cold grave of her husband. Next to the coffin walked two of the oldest one of them, more than all the rest, seemed sinking with sorrow. I thought she might have been the mother. Slow and solemn they moved along, while the throng opened on the right and left to let them pass. St. Paul's tremendous bell was tolling off, his loud and awful sounds. I thought of the dead march from a nunnery. I followed in the rear to view the closing scene. The mother stood by the side of the grave. The beautiful soothing lines of the burial service seemed to calm the tumult of her soul, and she stood with composure. The corpse was now let down into the grave. She stooped and took a last look.The sextons commenced filling in the clods of the valley. The hollow sound from the coffin struck on her heart; her tears gushed out afresh-like water's lately pent up I walked from the spot, and mixed with the multitude.

* *

The dread of the resurrection-men has induced many of the parishes in England and Scotland to erect towers in their burying-grounds, where a watch is kept all night; and many, even of the poorer class, bury their dead in cast iron coffins. I saw numbers of those

coffins piled up in the corners of the church-yards.— The lid is fastened on with strong screws.

The following authentic anecdote will illustrate the feelings of the common people on this (to them) important subject, and being written in the exact dialect of that section of the country, it will be amusing to some readers.

Anecdote of the Old Wives of Leven.

Leven lies in the parish of Scoony, in Fifeshire, Scotland. The burial-ground is situated about half a mile from the village. The writer of these sheets will never forget the shock he got on preparing to enter this little cemetery. He observed on a long pole overhanging the road, a board with this laconic and fearfully emphatic inscription, "Take notice-Any person entering this church-yard will be shot." As there was no exception specified in favour of either peripatetic authors, or any other harmless class of mortals, he of course abstained from his intended meditations among the tombs; though not without resolving to make the unapproachability of the burial-ground of Scoonie a little more extensively known.

The reader will have no difficulty in referring this formidable advertisement to its proper cause—the alarm which every where prevails regarding resurrection-men. This is a subject of some importance. The fear of nocturnal attempts upon the tombs of their friends may be said to have succeeded in the minds of the common people. The old superstition regarding ghosts and fairies is rife every where, but observable mostly in sequestered parts of the country. If the people be in the habit of seeing "strange gentlemen" riding and

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