Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-10-26
Theo, suddenly growing grave.

''It is strange, isn't it, said he,
''that / should loose my heart to such
a little termagant as you proved your
self the first day / ever saw you?
But it is a foregone conclusion-Ia am
entirely at your mercy. Sweet Theo,
will you be my wife?"
ssI will"
Deacon Powers could not compre-
hend it all.
eff he married such a high-tem-
pered girl as that" said the deacon,
che does it at his peril. Why,
never was so berated in my life as
was that day at the parsonage"
"But pa" said the deacon's
daughter, "every woman finds her
master sooner or later. Now, | think
Theodore has found hers
SENSELESS EXTRAVAGANCE
One of the great and growing sins
against the dead and the living in this
country is the increasing extrava-
gance of funerals whereby in ninety
cases out of every hundred the sur
vivors are robbed to greater or less
extent of means they need for per-
sonal use.
Funeral expenses are, indeed,
dead loss. The tens of millions of
dollars each year sunk into ground
beyond all there is need for, would
save a million or two children each
year from death. Thousands of fam
lilies are indeed scarcely prepared to
obtain the 500 to $3.50 required to
bury person as fashion now rules.
The expensive carriages, the waste
of flowers, etc., highly ornamented
satin-lined coffins, the jewelled grave
clothes, etc., are not evidences of
love for the memory or regard for
the worth, virtues and affections for
the ones who have passed on and be-
yond all such foolery, but an indica-
tion of vain pride and an ugly dispo-
sition to trot out larger, more snowy
funeral than the one which started
out yesterday.
The matter of birth, of death and
burial should be above fashion. Com
Fort should be the guiding star in the
one; just regard for the virtues
and good examples of the departed
in the other. All public funerals are
senseless. The public have no more
right to break in upon the grief of
mourners, than to crowd around the
couch whereon rests the mother dur
ing the holy hour of childbirth. 1t
is nothing but morbid curiosity that
impels crowd to gaze upon the feat
ures of the coffined dead. The result
of such exhibitions have bad effect
on children, and result in no good to
the ones who mourn.
A plain coffin. A few friends to
stand between the mourners and their
sorrow. A becoming carrying away
of the remains either to the grave or
crematory, and the showing of prop
Ell respect to the angel of death, as
well as to those who lost friend,
would be better than the expensive
struggle for style at such times. AS
the virtues of man are not put into
the ground, it seems like waste of
wealth to be packing millions of beau
tiful articles into earth each year,
there to decay and be lost to the
world. The dead rest no better in
hundred dollar casket than in a
plain five dollar coffin. The ninety
five dollars difference had better be
expended in food for the starving,
medicines for the sick. clothing for
the ragged, education for the ignor-
ant, convenience for the living, and
homes for those who are still of
earth.
Who of the teachers, the preach
ers, the practical thinkers and mould
ers of public opinion will give tho t
to these things. Surely we owe more
to the living than to the grave which
holds but the useless, perishable re-
mains of the dead.