Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-08-11
REALS FUNERAL.

The funeral of John Real, who was hung in
New York last Friday, for the murder of a
police officer, was a singular affair even for
the city of Gotham. The body of the muir
derer was escorted to the grave with pomp
and ceremony, with bands playing, colors fly
ing, and large crowd. The Herald has the
following description:
The hearse, decorated with funeral plumes,
was drawn by four gray horses, and through
its windows the coffin, adorned with a United
States flag and wreath OF immortelles, chal
lenged the notice of the spectators. The pro-
cession was nominally headed by band
which played the .'Dead March in Saul"
.Rousseau's Dream" and other appropriate
airs though after the cortege had fairly
formed in the avenue it was, in fact, led by
some hundreds of gamins, some of whom
were shoeless and ragged, while none betrayed
apparently very decorous sense of the &C.
casion. Immediately behind the band came
the hearse, escorted by the Tenth New York
Volunteers, with which regiment he served
during the war. Then followed almost in
Vulnerable political organizations and social
clubs, embracing, among others, the associa-
tions of the Twenty frst, Twenty-second
Twenty third and Twenty Fourth wards, the
Jackson, Sylvan Star, Amity and Osceola
Social Club, the Joseph NJ. Dunn. NJ. Vince
Ian and Michael Fay Associations, the Aurora
Guards of Yorkville, and the United Volun-
teers. These societies marched four abreast,
and nearly every man displayed on the collar
of his coat badge of the organization to
which he belonged, with mourning border,
and as a1egend, ''we mourn our loss"
Altogether there were about thirty five hun
bred persons thus following the hearse. The
| carriages, about twenty in number, brought
up the rear of the procession. In the first
were Reals two sisters and some relatives
in the second were his brother-in-law and
family.
Third avenue, from Thirty fourth street
upwards, was lined with people, the crowd
growing denser and denser after two o'clock,
until the sidewalks became almost impossible.
The principal corners were, of course, mo-
nopolized by their usual habftues, whose de-
meanor, however, betrayed some little inter
est in the waking world about them-quite a
pleasant change from the air of utter Incidence
and sublime Indifference which characterizes
such gentry on less impor ant occasions
Here and there, on such rare corners rs arc
not graced with liquor saloons, crowd o
women and childen, the more innocent con
tents of the neghboring tenement houses
gathered together and chatted and laughe,
} and talked local scandal patiently expectan
t of the coming spectacle. The staple of TIL
crowd that flowed slowly along the sidewalks
however, was evidently young New York,
the Bowery pattern of that article strongl.
predominating. The crowd seemed blu
slightly sympathetic with the demonstration
or with the object of it. Here and there, i
is true, some exceptionally noisy spectacle
vented his spleen against Gov. Hoffman in NJ
measured terms, and loudly affirmed tina
Real was perfectly justified in what he ha.
done, having simply killed Smedick in self
defence, adding, probably that Real had die
like man." But as general thing tn
mass of the crowd was strangely quiet, and
was plainly evident that they looked upon tn
whole affair as disgraceful exhibition o
bad taste, and had simply come to view tn
scene. When the hearse passed near Forfeit
street a bystander, noticing that the coffin wa
, drapei with the American flag, lost patience