Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-11-15
CARRIED TO BURIAL.
CORPSES BORNE IN ARMS AND ON
 BEERS AND LETTERS.

the AncIent tSyptlanS-1SoIhes IuDAc and Private Funera1s-Goths. Huns, Ethiopians-A Great Change.
 In very early times the dead were carried to burial without the aid of hearse or bier. Men took the corpse up bodily and carried it upon their shoulders or in their hands. After a while they employed the bier in the funeral procession. The natives of India used to suspend the dead body between two horses or mules The American Indians bore their dead upon filters, one end of which was fastened to horse, while the ! other end dragged upon the ground Ill by gone ages dead knights and warriors were | often carried upon the spears of their living comrades. In primitive regions rough carts 1 were used, and are still used today, to con- vey the dead to their final resting place. | From the rough cart tat other times em- i ployed for all manner of purposes) to the | hearse, having but one single, melancholy i mission, was an easy transition, compara- i lively speaking.
 | And in all these changes it is to be observed 1 that the more intelligent, the more enlight- ened people become, the simpler their burial rites. The most ostentatious funerals of today, even ill our own cities are those that occur among the poorer and supersti- tious classes. In England the lower middle classes and the grades below them still ad- 1 here to all the dummery of black plumes and | long crape streamers, and mutes, draped . horses and other depressing accompaniments ! of a ceremony that is always solemn enough, but should not be made painfully melancholy. i ANCIENT EGYPTIANS BELIEF.
 The ancient Egyptians bore their dead in barge across a lake, they held it vital part of their religious belief that the departed soul passed from this to the unseen world over the stream which they believed to sepa- rate the two exiStences. Transporting the body across a lake was merely synsbolical of 1 this The ancient Greeks carried the corpse to the funeral without any support whatever, except that of the hands and arms of the men who boro it. The beliefs of the Romans in respect to death, and for the most part their i funeral rites, were similar to those of the Greeks. If dead body could not be found, the sacred rites were performed at an empty tomb, and if any one happened to see dead | body and did not throw earth upon it, he was obliged to cxpiate the crime by sacrifice ing hog to Ceres. For these reasons, and the belief that the spirit of the departed wandered hundred years along the banks of the Styx before being allowed to cross if the body had not been interred shipwrccl< WIS the most dreaded of deaths.
 Rome had its public and its private funer- als, to the former of which the people were invited by herald. Infants and young men were buried sooner than grown persons, and with less pomp. The bodies of the de- parted were carried to the funeral pile on a couch covered with rich cloth, and commonly supported on the shoulders of heirs or nearest relatives, though sometimes on those of freed ~ men. Julius Caesar was borne by magis- tratcS, Augustus by senators, Germanicus by tribuneS and centurions Poor citizens or l slaves wore carried to the funeral pile in q plain bier or coffin, and children who died before they were weaned were carried by the mother. -Anciently all Roman funerals were celebrated by night, ill order that the magis- trates might not meet the procession and be- come defiled. Later in Roman history pub lio funerals were celebrated at an early hour in the forenoon, while private or ordinary funerals were always at night. Torches were used at funerals as well as at marriages
 The funeral rites of the Goths and Huns were often conducted on a scale of extrava- gance, both in regard to money and cruelty, that seldom has been equaled. Attla, for example, who died in 453, was buried ill a coffin which was inclosed in one of goll i'll another of silver and these in third of iron With tho body was inferred all the spells of the eacmy-harnesses, embroidered and studded with jewels, rich silks and precious booty from tho kingly palaces they had pillaged; and then, that the place of inter- ment might forever remain concealed, the Huns butchered all that assisted at the burial.
 DRYING DEAD BODIES.
 The Philippians arc said to dry tho bodies of their dead, salting them to prevent putre- faction, and then placing them in gravo covered with glass; through which the body is visible. Sometimes their colIins arc thrown into rivers and sometimes they arc kept in the houses of the deceased Is friends. The an- cient BactrianS suffered the bodies of their dead friends and relatives to be devoured by dogs, and even kept large and savage animals to devour such as lived to an extreme q o CT became enfeebled and useless through illness. . Tho ancient Christians testified their abhor- renee of cremation by depositing tho body of the deceased in the ground
 In Brazil there is today apparently little use for the hearse As soon as q person dies the doors and windows of the house are closed
 the only occasion, it is said, when the front entrance of Brazilian dwelling is shut, and the undertaken is sent for and told to prepare c funeral which shall cost so many milreis Everything is then left to him. The corpse Is always laid out in the best room in the house and rarely kept over thirty-six hours twenty four being the number required by }, the law If the diseased was married, fes roon of black and gold cloth is hung over the street door; if unmarried one of lilac and black; while if a child is dead the colors art white, or blue and gold. The collins for mar ried persons are always black, which Is never the case for young unmarried persons their! being red, scarlet or blue The chief use o1 the coffin is to convey the body to the ceme tery, and few persons actually buried il cofins.
 Within the past forty years great change
 has occurred in the external matters relating
 to burial in this country. While most Amer
 jeans of half a century ago had belief il
 God, immortality and life hereafter, ye ' they seemed to hold their opinions thes o' subjects not as real beliefs that shaped ant
 fashioned their daily life, but as matters t.
 which, in half slumbrous way, they gay assent. The grave, the tomb and death wer , all looked upon matters of terror, iron
 the thought of which all, old and young
 wise and simple, seemed to draw back fl
 horror In those days the country funera
 was matter of great solemnity and elabor
 ate preparation. There was a time when tn y. hearse did not exist in this country or, if i - did exist, was not in general use. This wa
 the case in the latter part of the Eighteent
 century, and the first part of the Nint