If pall-bearers are invited, they must be immediate friends of the deceased.
It is a foreign custom of much beauty and significance to select young children for pall-bearers for infants and children, dressing them in white, and draping the coffin in white, trimmed with silver fringe and cords.
If gloves and crape bands are distributed to the gentlemen guests, they must be handed them when they first enter the house. It is a gross violation of etiquette to make any selection in such cases; nobody expects to have gloves so given as to fit the hands; but they must be worn. It is far more elegant to present yourself already provided with black kid gloves on your hands, and allow the undertaker to provide you only with the crape.
Friends in deep mourning are not expected to pay visits of condolence, and are excused from accepting funeral invitations; but all others are expected to accept them. It is but a poor compliment to your friends to attend their dinners, receptions, balls, and parties, and refuse to be present when they are in affliction, or to pay the last act of respect to the memory of those they love.
During the week following a funeral, friends should leave their cards for the family of the deceased, and call again about a fortnight later, asking then to see the members of the family.
It is not customary to ask to see the family of a deceased friend before the funeral; but cards should be sent, and offers of service sent by note.
The lady friend nearest the family, or a relative not of the immediate family, is the proper person to purchase the mourning for the ladies of the family, and the gentleman friend or relative that for the gentlemen.
No member of the immediate family of the deceased should leave the house between the death and the funeral upon any errand or pretext.
At the funeral of a mounted officer, his horse, fully equipped, and draped in mourning, should be led by a servant after the hearse.
If the deceased belonged to any society, as Free Masons, Odd Fellows, or such organization, the society should be invited through a note sent to the President, and they will send word to the master of ceremonies if there is any especial order in which they wish to follow the corpse, or any form or ceremony peculiar to that order which they would like observed. These invitations, if given through the newspapers, should carefully specify the lodge or order to which the deceased belonged. The regalia in such cases is usually displayed on the coffin-lid, but removed before the coffin leaves the house.