The Express.
London, England, 1849-12-15 00:00:00

Vieentroil.

OUTGOING MAILS.
The West ladle Mills. tzelndieg Bermuda. Hannuah,
Ewen, Hardens, New Orleans, sod Mexico, and including
swan for Madeira, Bt. Jusn.de-Niesnaus, New Grande,
Chill, sad Pen, will bevade op on the mowing es Dee. 17.
The ant sae Lis:eoe, Spele, end Gibraltar will be
sale up on Its morning of Dee. 17.
The wens for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, tholepin Wends,
Sept, Ceylon. India, end China, via Southaraptinorill
be wade up on the morning of Dee. 20.
The mai vitt ean
Marseilles, to the Mediterran, Rept,
Dollen, Dont Yong, Ike., will be made up ca the
evening of Dee. 24.
The sails foe Nader* the Brazils. and Bunco Ayresmill
Ise made up on the evade, of Jan. 4.

110111 WATER AT LONDOIERIDCt. 2 t
Ys.
ran
.A= 3 i us.
Tio-Apssew—liimiit. IIA••••••••

LONDON. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15.

Tue sad and solemn ceremony of which we gave
an account in our columns yesterday suggests many
topics for reflection, of which the press would scarce
do well to omit to take advantage. We have already
psid our tribute to the many excellent qualiees of the
illustrious lady whose remains were on Thursday
con-igned to their last resting-place. Unaffected
and pious to the last, the dying wish of the Royal
Princess—that none of that pomp and ceremonial to
which in life she had been used, should be
extendedextened
to her cold clay in death—may serve as a
humility by which we all may profit.
There is something very touching in the Queen
D.swager's request that she should be carried to the
tomb, and not conveyed in a dismal hearse, and that
those who waisted in bearing her body should not be
the accu-tomed functionaries of the undertaker, but
children of the sea, the sons of the profession to
which her husband showed his partiality, asd which
is so remarkable for the simplemindedness and
unaffectedness of all classes of its members. We
may be forgiven if • e express a doubt whe-
ther the wishes of the deceased Queen were
in these particulars fully carried out. We can-
not help thinking that she desired, by her last
will, to express something mole than that a body of
sailors should merely assist in the ceremony, or, as
our reporter describes it, " place their hynds upon the
coffin." It seems to w, we must admit, that Queen
ADELAIDE contemplated the actual bearing of her
body by sailors instead of undertakers' men, and we
honour her for the feeling which evidently dictated

the request.
The desire of the deceased Queen that there should
be no useless expenditure upon the cm menial is 1183
greatly to her honour, and indicates the growth of a
feeling upon these subjects among the highest racks
of society which we earnestly hope will bring forth
good fruits. Nothing is more lamentably wasted
than the expenditure which is often incurred upon
these ceremonials in honour of the dead. And it
would be wrong to attribute this generally to any
pride or desire ter display among the wealthy. The
fault is rather attributable to the vicious system which
undertakers promote for their own advantage. The
hour of death is one in which it is not seemly.
and in many caws tt is impossible, for the friends of
the departed to look too closely after their expendi-
ture. They cone quently content them-elves with a
general order that " the funeral shall he as private as
is consistent with respectability." The undertaker's
ides of what is " consistent with respectability " is a
peculiar idea. Respectability with him means not a
horse and gig, as it did in TBVITELL'a ease, but a
beans and four, with plumes and mutes. This
official having the management of every-
thirg his own way, makes everything as
sp'eedid as he can, in order that be
may lay on the charges. Thum it is that ruinous ex-
penses are incurred, and that " funerals are per-
formed"—(how expressive is the word "performed"]
—after the usual undertaker's fashion. But we need
not say that the continuance of this system has a
most injurious consequence, and a most pernicious
effect
The funerals of the great and rich necessarily In-
fluence the funerals of the class below them,. The
natural desire to show respect to • beloved relative
or friend tends to the adoption of that mode of show-
ing it which is practised by the higher crass. Thus
we find "mutes" standing at tradesmen's doors, and'!
"feathers" bores before their hearses, although both
mutes and feathers are, in poict of fact,
merely the corruption of the ancient baronial
practice of mounting guard before the gate of
a castle and of bearing the casque and plume be-
fore the body of a departed knight. But for under-
bikers' " mutes " and " feathers the survivors pay
—pay, too, out of all reasonable proportion to the
service rendered. "The customary and anal
charge; as the lawyers say, for two red-noesd
men in black to stand before a door with
wands, and for a pottle-bellied man to stagger
under the burden of an (mermen waving plume, be-
comes a monstrous item in the undertaker's bill.
What results? The family, perhaps the needy &Se
dreu of the departed, are hampered with expenses—
and for what? To comply with a demand from
which their taste revolts—to produce a transient
effect which never is obtaiced! The money spent on
the mutes and feathers would secure many a perma-
nent benefit, if expended in acts of charity. It has
been computed that the sum wasted in this way in
two years in the metropclis would suffice for the
erection cf another St. Paul's, and that a third year's
expenditure of the same sort would be equal to its
ecdowment for ever.
Among the poor the fear of the expenses of a
funeral is shown very remarkably by the precautions
which they take to provide against them. The
Burial Clubs are societies which have their origin in
the fears of the poor as much as in their providence.
And well may it be so. As a rule there is no such
hard-hearted and merciless creditor as the undertaker.
He knows his bill cannot be disputed. His " best
elm coffin," his "best palliasse and pillow;" his
" plate with inscription," are all buried six feet below
the surface. His arrangements will all be sworn to
as most excellent by every man whom he paid to
accompany the hearse. It is said, and we believe it
to be a fact, that the enforcement of undertakers' bills,
incurred despite the wishes and even the remon-
strances of the poor, formed a large Rd of the bu,i-
ness of some of the meet notorious small debts courts
of the metropolis. The Palace Court, and
such tribunals of iniquity had their under-
taker,' attorneys and undertakers counsel, just as
the Old Bailey has its HUMFRETt+ and BALLANTINES
for area sneaks and pickpockets. And thus the law
is made a means, in innumerable instances, of throw-
ing the poor widow upon charity or on the poor's
rate: of rendering the orphans homeless merely to
satisfy this death's-head moth. The savings of the
poor, under this system, are thrown into the grave,
children ate left destitute, creditors are defrauded, and
heavy taxes are levied upon friends and neighbours.
It is astonishing that this undertakers' iniquity has
not aroused public attention long ago. But it is only
in isolated cues that the incubus is thrown off. In a
supplement to the Sanitary Report, we have an in-
stance of the kind recorded which deserves to be
more widely circulated. A gentleman, who recently
had the misfortune to lose a daughter, was dissatis-
fied with tho undertaker's arrangements fur her
funeral. lie had the courage to interfere. He did so
effectively. lie insisted upon her being buried without
the slightest paraphernalia or parade. With the amount
he saved he found himself able to erect, in honour
of her memory, a school for 25 village children whom
she had taken an interest in instruczing, and not only
to erect, but partially to endow it ! Such seethe bene-
fits that may be wrought by restricting undertakers'
hills for useless and only partially rendered services.
We trust the example of Queen ADELAIDE will
produce its effects upon the higher circles of society ;
that they will insist upon the entire absence of all out-
word pomp and show in the manner of conducting
funerals, and that we shall have no more of those dis-
plays which have been well described as
Proud without grandser ; with profusion, mean.

The poor will have greater difficulty in guarding
against the extortions of the undertaker. For them
soma public remedy ought to be providtd. We look
to the measures of the Board of Health for some sug-
gestions upon this head. By breaking up the old
corrupt system of complicity between undertakers
and managers of London churchyards, thf y may do a
great deal towards introducing a new and much im-
proved system in funeral managemeut. If extra-
mural interments are insi.ttd on, a new dims of
tradesmen will be called forth to supply the new de-
mind, and the result we may hope to be a salutary
competitioL