Some Observations Upon the Civilization of the Western Barbarians, Particularly of the English / made during the residence of some years in those parts.

by John B. Swazey

After the family have really got rid of the Undertaker, then comes the Lawyer, with the Bonze, to read the Will of the deceased. This is a new departure (as the English call it) in the family voyage of life. The Barbarian law is so erratic and confused, that no one knows what the dead man may have ordered to be done with his money. His Land goes probably to the eldest son, or nearest male relative; and, if it be all the property, younger children may be left quite beggared. The Will begins with some absurd superstitious formula; and, prepared by a Lawyer, is only intelligible to him. He, therefore, is present to read and to explain. For no one is supposed to comprehend its jargon but the initiated. The Will is read, therefore, to those who only imperfectly catch its meaning; and when a name is reached, the party listens with an eager attention. He may be one who, by nearness of blood, or by the nature of his relations with the deceased, expects to receive a handsome gift. When he, at length, from the mass of verbiage, dimly gathers only a gold ring or a gold-headed walking-stick, and sees some one, scarcely heard of, carry off the goods long waited for, he scarcely appreciates the loving token of regard ostentatiously bestowed upon him! Nor is his smothered rage extinguished by the satisfactory expression of other relatives, who whisper, "Well, he cringed and fawned to little purpose after all!"

From this Reading of the Will begins a new era in the family. Quarrels there may have been, but a common centre of influence and interest kept the contestants in order. But now, nobody satisfied (or only those who expected nothing, and got it), all are in a mood to attack any one, to charge somebody with meanness, with treachery. So bitter animosities spring up. Lawsuits, hatreds; families are severed; old friendships sundered; the lawyers stimulate the broils; and, at last, very likely the Will and all the property covered by it get into Chancery! When I have said this, I have said quite clearly, even to the Barbarian mind, that here all are equally wretched and equally impoverished, excepting the Lawyers!

The power of the dead man, by a Will, to cut off a wife or a son with a shilling (as the Barbarians express it), is monstrous. Then the unjust law, by which the next of kin takes all the Lands of a deceased, works endless misery. Think of younger brothers and younger sisters being forced to depend upon the cold charity of the oldest, who, by mere accident of birth, takes every thing! And not only this, but some distant male relative may cut off the very means of subsistence from females very near, and throw them helpless, and too poor to buy husbands, upon the world! A disgrace and shame too shocking for belief.

Then, too, the wife's relatives may have paid to her husband the very money which, by the Will, is coolly handed to a stranger!

Such anomalies are unknown to the customs of any well-ordered and civilised people.

The new Widow usually remains shut up in her house, inaccessible to all but her children, her servants, her Bonze, and her Lawyer, for twelve moons exactly. During this time she devotes herself to the prayers and invocations of the rites; and will not so much as look at a man, unless the exceptions named. She is wholly draped in black; her children, her servants, even her horses and dogs, are in black. She entirely quits all the vanities of life; she only allows her maid to smooth her hair. She suffers her hands and face to be washed, but never paints her cheeks, nor tints her eyelashes. If she go abroad, it is to the Temple to pray, or to the tomb (in some cases) of the "dear departed," covered from head to feet in thick black, followed by a tall footman, all black, bearing the Sacred Rites. If a man come too near, he is waved, with a solemn gesture of the hand, to remove away: this is the special duty of the flunkey. If, by any chance, the widow in her march happen to lift her thick veil, and catch the eye of a man,—ah! how dolorous must her prayers be!

Precisely at the stroke of time, when twelve moons have gone, the widow drops all the habiliments of woe, and is herself again!—that is, a woman in search of a husband!—if she have not, from clear, sheer desperation, and want of anything better to do, already pledged herself to her Priest or to her Lawyer. Now, free and at liberty to choose, she may wish to look further; but it is probable that "the inestimable services" of the Lawyer, in her time of misery, hold her to recompense; or that the Priest, attentive to the precept of the Sacred Writings (which commands that Widows shall be comforted), has so well obeyed, that the Widow, completely solaced by the dear, good man, gladly rests with him!

The great book of Rites and Customs regulating the conduct of widows, of widowers—in fact, the observances of Society generally—I have never been able to see. It is in the care and under the constant supervision of a High-Caste of exalted state, from whose authority there is no appeal, styled Missus Grundy. I think a stranger can in no case be allowed to see this Illustrious, nor the Book. Indeed, I was told that no one, not even Royalty itself, could inspect the Book, nor challenge this authority. It is hereditary in the mighty Grundy family; and the head of the House is believed to be infallible in social observances. Another remarkable thing is, there is never a failure in the succession—a Grundy is always on hand!

Now, Missus Grundy speaks with more tolerance as to Widowers: they are not absolutely liable to decapitation if they marry again in less than twelve moons. Widowers, for reasons I do not know, are favourites with the Barbarian females; and young women with money will give all they possess to get a Widower, even when he have many children. It may be because of the love for the "pretty dears," as the young ones are called; but, whatever the cause, the fact is certain. To gratify these gushing females, Missus Grundy allows a Widower to marry in a less time than twelve moons: it is so desirable that the pretty dears should have the tender care of a new (step) mother!

As the Barbarians have no Halls of Ancestors, where the family preserve with dutiful care the records of the virtuous dead—inscribed on tablets of brass or polished stone—and where, arranged in due order, stand the marble busts of those more distinguished—they soon forget the dead.