ef; and the feigned woe of the mutes, saulies, and plume
bearers, who are paid for their day's parade!

It is not so much among the wealthy upper classes that the mischiefs of
this useless and expensive mummery are felt, as amongst the middle and
working classes. An expensive funeral is held to be "respectable."
Middle-class people, who are struggling for front places in society,
make an effort to rise into the region of mutes and nodding plumes; and,
like their "betters," they are victimised by the undertakers. These fix
the fashion for the rest; "we must do as Others do;" and most people
submit to pay the tax. They array themselves, friends, and servants, in
mourning; and a respectable funeral is thus purchased.

The expenditure falls heavily upon a family, at a time when they are the
least able to bear it. 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. The largest of the working-men's clubs are burial
clubs. Ten pounds are usually allowed for the funeral of a husband, and
five pounds for the funeral of a wife. As much as fifteen, twenty,
thirty, and even forty pounds, are occasionally expended on a mechanic's
funeral, in cases where the de