Smyrna times., 1876-11-22
Costly Funerals.


day was appended to thenotice of funeral
the injunction, "Friends will kindly send
no flowers" This is not an absolute
novelty in funeral notices. Some time ago
we remarked upon the appearance of such
notice. The fact that such notices are
multiplying shows that the feeling which
prompts them is becoming general, and
this seems to us gratifying thing.
There is nothing more graceful than this
custom OF floral tributes, in its origin and
meaning. To strew the grave or the coffin
OF child or a young woman with white
flowers is fit and affecting at once as a
tribute and as an expression of bereave-
ment. But even in this case it is necessary
to the sxpressiveness of the ceremony that
1t should be spontaneous and unforced.
In our recent usage we have completely lost
sight of these conditions. People who
never knew the dead when living, but who
happen to know some members of the
family, feel called to testify not their own
bereavement, but their notion of the
bereavement which somebody else has sus.
tanned, though sincere mourner does not
care for the sympathies of those who know
nothing of what he has lost, and the ex.
preston OF their sympathy, never grateful
to him, may become impertinent and even
maddening. Moreover, neither ones res
pect for the dead nor ones sympathy with
the survivors can be expressed in money.
fetan attempt so to express tits the essence
OF the existing system of "foral tributes. ,,
Men think to discharge themselves of
their duties to the dead and the living by
ordering SO many dollars worth of cut
flowers, the amount being regulated by the
intimacy OF their business as we'll as social
relations with the mourning family, and
their sense of what is required of them.
thus the simple flowers which should be
strewn by mourners are converted into
huge mortuary trophies of crosses and
crowns and anchors, which represent no
feeling whatever but that of social obliga.
ton, and with which the givers of them
had nothing whatever to do except to pay
for them. They vie with each other in ex.
pense, and the result is that a funeral
becomes a scene of horrible and vulgar
display.
1t is no wonder that sensitive and self.
respecting persons should have found the
pass to which the funeral floral show busi-
ness has got altogether intolerable, and
should have taken means to stop it in the
cases OF funerals in their own families. 1t
is quite time. Besides having become SO
repulsive to right feeling, it has become a
severe tax on many. Mourners whs would
much rather not have this load of floral
sympathy from casual acquaintances find
that they have to reciproeate it to an equal
extent in cost when these casual acouaint-
ances are bereaved. Funerals are so costly
in other ways as to be burdensome to
families in Strengthened circumstances. 1t
is perhaps impossible to reform this
altogether, for it proceeds from that "pas-
sionate prodigality F" in sacrificing our sub.
stance to those we have loved and lost
which is a deep trait of human nature
But in this respect we can correct it by
acting in a rational and considerate way by
refraining from sending "Aoral tributes" to
any burials but those of our own near
friends; and even then by sending simpler
and less pretentious offerings. The usage
which has lately prevailed is extravagant,
offensive, and of no advantage or consola-
tion to any but the florists.