New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-06-22
NATIONAL FUNERALS.

We called attention some time ago to the
increasing barbarous taste among US for vul-
gar private funeral displays, and were glad to
see that our contemporaries took up the sub
ject and heartily seconded us in our effort TO
place this ill-bred abuse in its true light.
Since then, the sOlenpyty and tender beauty
of Dickens's simple funeral have pointed the
moral better than amy words of ours could do.
Nothing in his life better became him than
the leaving Of it. When a man is dead, his
work, good or ill, belongs to the public; but
only his work. That which aids or impedes
the worlds Progress, the world has a right to
accept OF yeject to test, torture, tear to pieces
if it will. But the poor bOdy-the
hand which his friend has grasped, the
lips that his wife has kissed, the
knee on which his children have climbed
belongs to those who loved him. Let them
decently and tenderly lay it away. There is
some reason in the Ojbways and Fans when
they follow their dead to the grave with horn
blowing and beating of drums, meaning to
bring them good luck but our higher civiliza-
ton teaches us that the dead are beyond the
reach of our noise it is to soothe our own
wounded feelings that we bear about not only
our mOckery of woe but our cOrpses as pub
lie show, load them with wire-stalked bou-
quets, and make their burial pretext for fam
farOnade of every kind, and especially for an
exhibition of our fashionable acquaintance.
These private 0jibway funerals are very
good index to our advance in social refine
ment in the cities but there is lower deep
of horror. In smaller towns, when the unfor-
tunate dead man had the ill-luck to belong to
any fire company, benefit, or secret society,
they seize upon his corpse, hoist it on fire.
engines, swathe it in American flags, drag it
up one street and down another make
speeches over it, fire over it, and then march
gayly away TO jgging tune, leaving the sex
ton to cOnsign it 10 its mother earth.
We press this subject again because we wish
to point out the manner in which this general
debasement of the public taste and feeling has
reached its elimination on several occa-
siOns in what might be called national fune-
rails, when the poor corpse was hailed not
through gaping village, but the length and
breadth of the land, bringing wherever it
went, instead of the sanctity and silence of
death, only hot, perspiring fury, parade,
laundering cannons, vulgar ostentation, and
rancorous envy. Now, this all, doubtless, had
its origin in vague desire to do honor to the
departed. Far be it from us to censure OF rid
icule any worthy regret or appreciation of a
great life greatly ended; such appreciation en-
mobiles him who gives far more than him who
receives it; but surely it can find more fit
ting outlet than this tawdry glare, this deafen
ing tantara The first terrible outbreak of
national feeling at Mr.. Lincolns death almost
warranted the conyeyal of his murdered body
from city to city. 1t seemed to he fitting at
the time that the people should be permitted
TO lay their hand upon his bier, to vow
deeper allegiance to that country whose
martyr he was. But who that saw the steam
ing, struggling, swearing crowds which blocked
its progress, the awe degenerating into ridi-
Guile, the pOmp and clamor and gaudy cheap
display that dragged at each remove H. length
ening chain from Washington to Springfield,
did not resent it as an insult to the great and
simple soul who slept belowi
The three funerals of this kind of which the
nation Las been guilty have in each INSTANCE