FITNERAL FORMALITIES.
AMONG the many quaint characteristics of the human mind, none at first seems to be quainter than the exagt gerated importance it attaches to decent, and in some sense honorific, funerals. Every one who knows anything of ti e poor, knows how they will toil and even shorten their days by pinching themselves of proper food and clothing, to avoid the ignominy of a pauper's funeral. A great scandal has just taken place at Cardiff, in consequence of some undertaker's having contracted with the Poor-law Guardians to bury the poor dying in the workhouse at the rate of 17s. 6d. "a case,"— as the event of death was tersely and rudely described,—the only hearse provided being a spring-cart,—although a com- petitor in undertaking had been in the field who was willing to have performed the same operation for the Guardians at 168., or is. 6d. less, with a proper hearse "thrown in,"— the Guardians having preferred the higher and less decent offer from some motive attributed to favouritism ; and it seems likely that the indignation felt at this want of respect for the decencies of funeral rites, will bring down condign punishment on the local authorities responsible for the scandal. Public feeling evidently condemns sharply the substitution of a spring.cart for a hearse with its black plumes,—to say nothing of the cheaper rate at which the more solemn vehicle could have been hired,—and the question is Why this feeling should be so strong in almost every class of society as it is. Why, again, should the poor scrape and put themselves to very severe sacrifices, in order that when they are no longer in this life at all, it should be rumoured among their friends and acquaintances that they themselves paid for the last rites, and did not suffer the "parish" to defray the expense of arranging for their inter- ment? Yet nothing is more certain than that they do this in hundreds and hundreds of cases. There is no exercise of imagination in which even the neediest of the needy take more delight, than that of projecting their minds into the future and anticipating the arrangements for their own decent interment. The author of "Tales of Mean Streets," which we recently reviewed in these columns,* gives very pathetic instances of this passion of the imagination. We have, indeed, no doubt that if most men had to choose between providing against a spasm of superfluous suffering in the • Spectator, March 9th, p. 329. death-agony, and the necessity for a pauper funeral, the great majority of the English people would prefer the addi- tional suffering, of which they would be fully conscious, to the ignominy of which, except in their forecasting imagina- tion, they would not in all probability be conscious at all. Indeed, though they themselves would have to endure the pangs of the former, and would only feel the shadow of the coming and purely conventional humiliation pass over their minds in the latter case, they would think nothing of the real pain of the former in comparison with the imaginative pain of the latter experience. Ignominy which you only anticipate as likely to be attached by others to the last appearance of your body in this world, is far more dreaded than even pain which you yourself must shrink under before you leave this world.
What is the reason, or rather, is there any reason, for this feeling ? Why are we so sensitive to a sort of con- ventional public opinion which will affect us only so far as it affects the memory of us in the minds of others, and that not for more than a few hours or a few minutes in a crowd of very languid impressions, and are yet so compara- tively indifferent to troubles which we must go through our- selves, and which no one will give us credit for our courage in confronting and ignoring ? We suppose the answer must be that if it were not so, if "the bubble reputation" had not in thousands and thousands of cases far more fascination for us than even the endurance of real and keen pangs could out- weigh, human society could hardly be the solid fabric that it is. Is not half the so-called courage which men display really due to the fear of shame? Is not half the willingness of women to be thought more timid than they really are, due to the pleasure of being considered feminine, and exciting by that impression a kind of gentle sympathy which is half- misplaced ? Without the strong wish to conform ourselves, in outward effect at least, to a purely conventional standard of what we ought to be, it would be almost impossible for men to form any correct estimate of what to expect in the conduct of their fellow-creatures. There is a Lancashire story of an old woman who on her death-bed was listening to her sons' deliberations as to the conduct of the funeral, and who in a weak and trembling voice put in a wish of her own as to the order to be observed, whereupon she was firmly rebuked by one of her children in the words, "Thee leave all that to us, thee mind thee dying." Could there be a clearer illustration of the conventional character of these emotions ? It might be natural and right for a dying person who had no one else to take care of the arrangements for the funeral, to be concerned about them, but where that was not the case, where the living were taking due interest in the decent preparations for a final notification of what had happened to the world, the proper course for the departing spirit was to occupy itself in studying the attitude in which her farewell of this world should be taken. It seemed to the sons almost an unworthy reflection on their solicitude for the decencies of death, that their mother should be distracted from playing her proper part in the affair, by over-anxiety as to the earthly part of the ceremony. Without universal respect for the conventional expectations as to the proper part to be taken by the living and the dying in the last great pageant of life, we should certainly not have such elaborate funeral rites as are to be found amongst all races, savage as well as civilised; and we should also lose that valuable moulding power of conventional custom, which compels us, throughout life, more or less to feel whatever it is necessary for the well-being and convenience of our fellow-creatures that we should feel. We cannot throw off at the last moment,—indeed, it is far more difficult to throw off at the last moment than at any more vigorous moment of life,—that respect for the conventional expectations of others which has, in great measure, moulded our life from beginning to end. If we are ever to rebel successfully against the authority of conventional standards, it must be when the individual life flows strongly in our veins, and not when it is just ebbing away in the feebleness of an expiring pulse.
There are many persons who take a pride in feeling, and perhaps still more in saying, that they do not care a jot whether their remains are rattled to the grave in a spring-cart, or carried to it solemnly in a hearse ; and, indeed, though that feeling is hardly a subject for pride, to a good many persons it is perfectly natural. But although it is perfectly
Aatural, it is not at all desirable that it should be the pre- valent feeling in any society. There are plenty of phases of feeling which need not be, and indeed could not be, very deep, but which ought to be, and generally are, very real as far as they go. And the feeling of subdued awe, not to say mild sadness, with which the mere fact of death, even when it happens to a perfect stranger, is regarded, is one of these. If every one who is himself indifferent as to what becomes of his own remains, could communicate that indiffer- ence to all the circle in which he is known, would not the result be very mischievous to society at large—would it not tend to increase very much the coarse and careless spirit in which dangers tending to spread death amongst us are often treated in times of plague or war ? Would it not tend, in short, to extinguish that sense of reverence with which it is not only usual but right to regard the presence of that dread angel ? The truth is that, though it may be quite proper for the person about to die to be indifferent to the fate of his own body, since he looks forward to a conscious exist- ence in a future life with which the fate of his body has no connection, yet it is not right and natural for those around him to look at the matter in the same light ; and yet, if the dying person were not, as a rule, deeply concerned that he should have a decent burial, it would be inevitable that those about him would care less, and show less interest, as to how his body should be disposed of, than they now do. There is what Mr. Balfour has called an " atmosphere " of moral feeling, which is of more importance even than is the intensity of individual feelings, and it seems to us that such an atmosphere of moral feeling concerning death is of the highest value in relation to the spread of true civilisa- tion. Though a certain number of individuals may not enter into this feeling in relation to their own funerals, it ic very fortunate for society that the great majority of men do share the conventional desire for that solemn treatment of their own exit from life, with which it is both right and natural for their friends and neighbours to encounter it.
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