Photo by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
MABEL HACKNEY
The young and charming wife of Lawrence Irving, who also went down with the ship.
With the conclusion of the service the massed militia bands, under the conductorship of Lieutenant Slatter, of the Forty-eighth Highlanders, began to play Chopin’s “Funeral March,” and the sad duty of removing the caskets to the funeral vans commenced. Between the long rows of mourners the pallbearers silently passed with their mournful burdens, while the drawn faces and dimmed eyes spoke eloquently of the pangs suffered as the remains of their loved ones passed from their sight forever. It was a moment filled with the tense current of emotion—a moment as impressive as any that has followed the tragic Empress disaster.
IMPRESSIVE PROCESSION
Headed with the heavily white-draped standards of the Army from all the city corps, at the slow march, and followed by the first section of the massed bands playing the “Dead March,” the cortege presented a melancholy and impressive sight. The funeral cars, draped heavily with crepe and purple, and each drawn by four black horses caparisoned with black and purple trappings, and each led by an attendant, were preceded by two draped cars heavily laden with the beautiful floral tributes. Behind came the mourners and further in the procession the survivors, many of whom came from sick beds to attend the service, while at the rear walked the lodges, the massed military bands and the various representatives of the local militia in full regimentals. The procession was one of the largest known in the city, almost 6,000 marching.
PEOPLE LINED STREETS
Tens of thousands of citizens lined the streets to witness the passing of the funeral cortege. The crowd was densest on Yonge Street, both sides of the thoroughfare from Wilton Avenue to the cemetery gates, a distance of three miles, being crowded with humanity of every nationality. As the remains of the unfortunate victims were borne past on the heavily-draped drays, every man bared his head in solemn reverence, while hundreds of women were observed wiping their stained eyes. There was a solemn silence that seemed strange at such an hour of the busiest day of the week.