rhear the bereaved
remarking that they trust the departed is in a better place. Why, if
this were not a mere customary saying on mournful occasions--if the
parties really believed this--do you think they would attach any
importance to the dead body which we bury underground? No; to be sure:
they would look upon it merely as a suit of left-off clothes--with
the difference of being unpleasant and offensive, and not capable of
being kept. They would see that a spirit could care no more about
the corpse it had quitted, than a man who had lost his leg, would for
the amputated limb. The truth is--don't breathe it, don't whisper
it, except to the trade--that the custom of burying the dead with
expensive furniture; of treating a corpse as if it were a sensible
being; arises from an impression--though parties won't own it, even
to themselves--that what is buried is the actual individual, the
man himself. The effect of thinking seriously, and at the same time
rationally, will be to destroy this notion, and with it put an end
to all the splendor and magnificence of funerals, arising from it.
Moreover, religious parties, being particular as to their moral
conduct, would naturally consider it wrong and wicked to spend upon
the dead an amount of money which might be devoted to the benefit
of the living; and no doubt, when we come to look into it, such
expenditure is much the same thing with the practice of savages and
heathens in burying bread, and meat, and clothes, along with their
deceased friends.

I have been suggesting considerations which are very discouraging, and
which afford but a poor look-out to us undertakers. But, gentlemen,
we have one great comfort still. It has become the fashion to
inter bodies with parade and display. Fashion is fashion; and the
consequence is that it is considered an insult to the memory of
deceased parties not to bury them in a certain style; which must
be respectable at the very least, and cost, on a very low average,
twenty-five or thirty pounds. Many, such as professional persons and
tradespeople, who cannot afford so much money, can still less afford
to lose character and custom. That is where we have a pull upon the
widows and children, many of whom, if it were not for the opinion of
society, would be only too happy to save their little money, and turn
it into food and clothing, instead of funeral furniture.

Now here the Metropolitan Interments Bill steps in, and aims at
destroying our o