“I desire and direct my executors to keep my dwelling-house on for at least a year after my decease, and also the same with my house in Essex; and I do recommend them to visit Greensted Hall at least six times in that year, and to stop from Saturday to Monday morning; to hire a light coach and an able pair of horses, set out betimes, and breakfast on the road, alternately to take one of their families, that each corner may be filled to help drink out the wine in the vault. The same to be observed in Hatton Garden. Executors to order a dinner for themselves half-score times, to consult and consider the business they have in hand, and not to spare the wine in that cellar, and the remainder at last to be divided between them and carried to their respective houses.”
This will is taken from a volume published for county circulation by Philip John Budworth, M.A., J.P., and D.L., for the county of Essex, and entitled, “Memorials of the Parishes of Greensted—Budworth, Chipping Ongar, and High Laver.”
Will of a Bruxellois
A wealthy individual of Brussels, who died in July, 1824, ordered by his will that his body should be buried in the least expensive manner possible; and that the funeral service should be that known as “third-class;” but that the difference between this and a “first-class” funeral should be computed, and the sum laid out in a thousand loaves, to be distributed to the poor of his parish on the day of his funeral, and a plaquette (value 6½ sous) to be given with each loaf.
Burial Customs in Austria
In the Austrian capital, Vienna, the undertakers have most successfully introduced the custom of dressing up the dead in satins, laces, and flowers, supplying appropriate costumes for maids, brides, wives, widows, with couches en suite, and decorations for the chamber of death, which is brilliantly illuminated, while the corpse, with face painted in the hues of health, lies there raised on satin pillows to receive the visits of a crowd of friends. All is done with great expedition, for the law only allows a delay of twenty-four hours between the death and burial, and all this finery has to be removed after the family and friends have done looking at it, and to be replaced by such grave-clothes as the undertaker chooses to exchange for it beneath the coffin-lid.
Buried in a Trunk
A very singular will was opened, on the 8th of October, 1877, in the office of Maître Robillart, a notary of Paris. It was that of a Sieur Benoît, formerly residing at Rue des Gravillers, and lately deceased. The last clause of it was thus worded:
“I expressly and formally desire that my remains may be enclosed for burial in my large leather trunk, instead of putting my survivors to the expense of a coffin. I am attached to that trunk, which has gone round the world with me three times.”
Strange Will of Jeremy Bentham