The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-04-05
FASHIONS IN FUNERALS.

Unostentatious Display and no Flu
neral Cortege the Prevailing Mode.
From the NeU York GraDhic.
Fashion extends her dominion farther
than kings and emperors; she rules after
death.
The styles of dress for the dead vary and
change and are dictated by all the usual
considerations of display, custom and
beauty.
Burial robes for youthful women are
usually being made now of soft, white
wooden cloth and in some modification of
Greeks STYLES.
One dressmal1er, who is much in vogue
for funeral toilets, has for such occasions
made six in imitation of the one Mary
Anderson wears first as Galatea. A scarf
like Greek wrap is worn with it when de-
sired. The dressmaker thinks it is ''sweet .
Very strictly and conventiOnally religious
people like better the "angel" rope, which
is made like the dress of Raphael's Sistine
Madonna. 1t has been made The same way
a long time, but the substitutions of wooden
cloth for cotton or linen is new, and so also
is the choice of yellowish over a blush
white. All coffin trimmings should now be
yellowish. That dreadful blue-white that
had come to be so associated with funerals
that the sight of it anywhere is painful
is 'out.n
The hair should be let down or done in a
Greek knot. If down it should be partially
curled. A hair dresser is usually called in
when it is ''swell" house that is bowed by
sorrow to arrange these little details, and
there is one in this city who has the run of
this kind of business "NO, for Gods sake,
don't put my name in the paper as doing that
business he said. at pays very well in
itself, but then it is uncertain and irregular,
nd TO To l.
you make it a speciality"
For elderly women pilgrim suits are used.
They are made of serge properly, but when
that is felt to be too harsh cashmere or
broadcloth are required. 1t is made like a
! friar's gown, with girdle and cape. Some
times a sort of cap or close bonnet of the
same material is worn with it. This should
be perfectly plain, but a choice of strings
of ribbon or of the cloth is allowed. Brown
or gray are the favorite colors. Burying
In black is obsolete.
The winding sheet is being revived. 1t
will again be possible to wrap the drapery
of their couch about the departed when
they go ON their last journey. White bill
lard cloth is the proper material for these
articles, and they completely enwrap the
body in carefully arranged folds. Winding
sheets are used only for men, and at present
only for comparatively young men, and at
very private funerals.
Amid all these fashions it is pleasant to
note that the fashion of privacy and sim
plicity increasingly prevails in the best
society
A rather dramatic form of privacy is at
tanned by the vesper burial. Services are
held at the house late in the afternoon, the
friends retire Immediately after, and at
twilight the hearse, attended by a single
carriage containing clergyman and rela-
tiUec carry the coffin the Uanlt This
arrangement is new in America, although
notifications of it have prevailed for hum
dreds of years on parts of the Continent
1t gains favor in New York, where the
cemeteries are at such great distances, and
the trouble of going to them is more than
families like to ask of their friends.
Moreover, it is accepted because of its
marked distinction from the funerals of the
masses, with whom an array of carriages
is still mark of distinction.
There are few people who lay away
their dead in the way that best harmonizes
with their feelings regardless of the course
pursued by their neighbors. If they long
to see the dear one in the aspect most
familiar and beloved in life she is dressed
in garments she has worn.
Not long ago funeral service was held
in a room where the sunshine streamed in
and the piano stood open, because the
family found this course most harmonious
with their blessed hopes of immortality; but
as a rule death as much as life is domino ted
by custom.