Failure of the objects of the common Expenditure on Funerals.
§ 84. Notwithstanding the immense sacrifices made by the labouring classes for the purpose, neither they nor the middle classes obtain solemn and respectful interment, nor does it appear practicable that they should obtain it by any arrangement of the present parochial means of interment in crowded districts.
§ 85. Few persons can have witnessed funeral processions passing in mid-day through the thronged and busy streets of the metropolis, without being struck with the extreme inappropriateness of the times and places chosen for such processions. This want of regulation as to appropriate times is the subject of complaints, which must attach, even to a greater extent, to numerous processions, without regulation, from the centre of the populous town districts to the suburbs.
Mr. Wild, the undertaker, was asked—
What besides the expense, and the objection to the ground, do you find is the objection entertained to the existing mode of burial in the crowded districts of the metropolis?—One very common objection, is the inconvenient time; the average time is about 3 o’clock, but it varies from 2 to 4 o’clock. This is very inconvenient for persons in business, who wish to attend as mourners. From this cause, interments are frequently delayed; at this time, also, the streets are very much crowded; sometimes boys crowd round the gates, and shout as ill-educated boys usually do; sometimes there are mobs; I have known the service interrupted more than once during the ceremony; sometimes the adults of the mob will make rude remarks. I have heard them call out to the clergyman, “Read out, old fellow;” sometimes I have known them make rude remarks in the hearing of the mourners; on the clergyman frequently; but this has been on the week days, when, of course, the numbers attending are very great. At times, the adults and mob at the gates have an idle and rude curiosity to hear the service. I have known them rush in past the mourners, and go in indiscriminately. It is part of my business to see the mourners and corpse safe in, before I go in; and I have been sometimes severely hustled, and have had great difficulty in getting in myself.
Are the crowds in the town, or districts, ever characterized by any reverence for the dead?—Not the slightest: quite the contrary, and it makes part of the annoyance of interments in town to have to encounter them.
Are you not aware that on the Continent it is generally the custom for passengers of every condition in the streets, to stop and take off the hat, on the approach, and during the passage of the dead?—I have met with several instances of persons stopping in our streets in London, and taking off their hats. On looking at them, I had reason to believe they were foreigners.
Have you ever known carriages or common coaches, or carts or waggons, stop in the streets on the approach of a funeral?—I have seen gentlemen pull their check-strings, or tap at their windows, and stop their coachmen in towns; but, if the carriage were empty, there was no stoppage. But none of the common conveyances ever stop. I have several times ran the risk of being knocked down by them. I have known cabmen and omnibus men drive through the procession of a walking funeral, and separate the mourners from the corpse. These characters display complete indifference to such scenes.
§ 86. In the rural districts the population appears to be so far better instructed and more respectful; but, according to the testimony of living persons, the same indifference has not always characterized labouring classes in the town districts, even of the metropolis. It is described as an unavoidable consequence of the increasing numbers of funerals, and familiarity with them arising from the neglect of appropriate general arrangements, a neglect from which not only the relations and parties engaged in such services, but strangers have to complain, that their feelings are not duly regarded. In a rural parish, the deceased who is interred is generally known, and the single funeral arrests attention and excites sympathy. In crowded districts neighbourship diminishes; a vast portion of the population of the metropolis pass their lives without knowing their next-door neighbours, or even persons living in the same building; the great majority of burials are, to the mass of the population, burials of strangers, for whom no personal sympathies can be awakened; the inopportune and unexpected passage of small funeral processions through busy and unprepared crowds of the young and active, create a familiarity that stifles all respectful or reverential feelings, whilst the numbers of separate funerals make undue demands on the sympathies, and harass the minds of the sickly and the solitary by their continued passage, and the perpetual tollings of the passing bells. Examples in some of the German cities might be cited of refined and successful arrangements by which the feelings of all are consulted, by interments either in the quiet of evening or of early morning, or by the selection of retired routes for the processions. The funeral processions to the cemetery of Frankfort are generally held at early morning for the labouring classes.
§ 87. The celebration of religious ceremonies in a satisfactory manner at some of the populous parishes, appear to be often extremely difficult, if not impracticable. Mr. Wild further answers:—