Sydney Smith, in a famous polemic against the taxes in
the reconstruction epoch after the Napoleonic Wars, traced the relations of the collector and the citizen. He described how the citizen began in a taxed cradle and ended in a taxed coffin. We seem to be destined not only to be followed from the cradle to the grave by the tax-collector, but, what is even worse, by the interference of Trade Societies. In last Saturday's Hertz and Watford Observer there appeared a letter by Mr. Montague Hall, the Rector of Bushey, in which he describes a veto placed by a Trade Society, the Undertakers Association, upon even the liberty of buriaL At Bushey working people and others have wisely organized a system of " walking funerals " which not only save expense; but give a simplicity and solemnity to burials which is very much to be desired. In these walking funerals a wheeled bier is used which was presented to the town of Bushey by a lady who wished to save the members of the com- munity the expense of " costly horses, hearse and carriages." Since this present was made some eighteen years ago the wheeled bier has been in constant use. The other day, however, Mr. Hall received a letter from the Secretary of the local centre of the Undertakers Association, in which the writer said : " It is undesirable for wheel-biers to be used for funerals and removals, and I am directed to notify you that our members will refuse to use a bier outside any church, churchyard, or cemetery after June 30th."
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