Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-12-05

At Crowau, COrnyyau-Cornfsh Fune-
raIs-One Hundred Thousand Per-
sons Attend a Notwithstanding a
FuneraI-The Dreariest Trip on
Earth-It Always Rains in Corn
wall Anchored Gravestenes - No
EHearses in This Land-S'Carryin'
the Box'' Attended With Difficulty.
CRowAN, Cornwall, Nov. %.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
1 always love to come into rough and
hearty old Cornwall Physically it has
two interesting aspects, the moorland,
mineland interior barrenness; and the
weird and wondrous coastwise scenic
glory.
The moorlands stretch dolorously as if
in boundless loneliness. The tors or hills
are bleak and bare. The whole face of ma
ture seems torn and SCARED as if by tre-
mendous elemental struggles. Yet all
these caverns and chasms which disfgure
it We're made by the hand of man. Its
granite, shale and slate hide copper, tin
and iron. For more than three thousand
years its surface has been cleft, and its
depths gored and bored, until its face is
pitted as if with extinct volcanoes.
Towards st. Georges channel at the
northwest and the English channel at the
southeast, innumerable valleys and tiny
burns slope towards and cut through the
walls by the sea, every one discharging
limpid streams, which go whirling, foam
ing or singing to the sea. Along the sides
of these lovely combes are the quaint old
nomes. the rich acres, the ample rioks of
grain and the sleek herds of the sturdy
farmers of Cornwall. Tramp these coast
roads but a mile, you suddenly stumble
upon these lovely vales-the stream and
the farms half hidden by glorious foliage
dotting the sides far up the combe as eye
can reach; here a rumbling old mill; there
a nesting church; below you the quaint
old village; beyond, the tiny haven skirted
by the homes of fishers, and specked by
queer fishers crafts; further, the tide
ploughing up between massive haven
walls, or stretch of low-tide rock and
drift: and at last the bright blue sea.
So there are three kinds of folk and life
in Cornwall. The mines and miners
largely occupy the barren interior. Be-
tween these and the coast are the farms
and farmers of the tiny combes and wales.
And everybody on the coast is fisher
man, fshwife, or in some way profits from
the endless harvesting of the deep. Yet
these Cornish folk are all one. They are
one in sentiment and tradition; in every
day life and custom; in cesseless labor and
integrity; in countless quaint and curious
superstitions; in dislike and distrust of
every English person and thing outside of
Cornwall; and they are one in an almost
universal piety. They are nearly all Meth
odists of the first, firm sort. They are all
God-fearing, spook- believing, honest-desl-
ing folk, who believe that liquor is as good
for the body as it religion for the soul;
scrimping neither; indulging in neither to
excess; and withal savoring their rugged,
every day lives with a mutual helpfulness
that is noble and a generous hospitality to
the right-meaning stranger which knows
no bounds.
Having been much among these simple
and sturdy people, 1 have been greatly i'm
pressed by the often mournful and almost
stern manner in which their olden customs
are preserved. Change is unknown in
Cornwall 1t is regarded in the nature of
desecration. The changeless pursuits of
the people for thousands, not hundreds, of
years, mining, farming and fishing, large
ly account for this Besides Cornwall has
few large towns. People live IN miners
cottages, farm houses and fishers huts,
which are huddled, by the half dozen to
perhaps score, in tiny hamlets. In these
Cornish life may be seen to-day precisely
as it has remained for hundreds of years.
Perhaps there is no event among these
people more illustrative of character,
traits and the peculiar cherishing of
nf71o metz than tha Cornish fnna-
raj. No work is done for half a score of
miles roundabout on funeral days. All
festive or political occasions fail to draw
together such Cornish crowds as the bur-
ial OF the lowliPst man or woman of Corn
wall The assemblsges never number less
than many hundreds, and usually com
prise many thousands of Cousin Jacks, !"
as all Cornishmen are called, and all call
each other; while the burial of a Cornish
farmer miner or fisherman will often at
tract far greater crowds than that of the
greatest and noblest lord. To illustrate
this singular outpeuring on funeral occa-
sions, in 1870 the body of q Praze miner
who had emigrated to Colorado and had
been accidentally killed in one of the
mines of that state, was brought back here
for burial. The entire population of Corn
wall is less than a half million souls, yet
more than one hundred thousand Cornish
folk attended this funeral, or nearly ten
times the number that gathered at the fun
eral ceremonies of the late Lord st. Au-
byn.
Every little hamlet has it carpenter and
ioiner. From time immemorial this por-
sonage has possessed extraordinary digni-
ty from the fact that, by favor and Gus
tom, he is also the undertaken. His shop,
which is also his home, where his appren-
tice lives with him, is regarded with ex-
treme awe. 1t contains the funeral
tackle" the necessary implements for bur
ial, which have been handed down through
generations, and in whose preservation
himself and his wife exercise and display
extraordinary anxiety and pride. The
people are universally superstitious re-
sarding all these articles, and if any are
accidentally seen lying about, they exhibit
genuine awe and fear. In fact they are
intensely and hereditarily keen in all death
portents. attach the greatest significance
to the slightest token, and, it is said, can
s'smel a funeral from Bodmin to Pen
zance."
At the discovery of the fsintest aroms
of coffin varnish in any Cornish hamlet
everybody is astir. Men and women gath
er in the streets; and women rush into
each others houses with the welcome
mournful news.
"Oa, jimmy, the GREATNESS Visltor VIII
gasp, ''Tommy's (the joiner maxim box,
youI"
s'You" is added to nearly every conver-
sational exclamation, inquiry, answer or
sentence, in Cornwall.
"Howst ee knaaw, you"
'tCos't ee smell uni"
The Joiner is quite as keen in keeping
informed regarding the progress of any
neighborhood illness, and is not likely to
be caught unprepared when his services
are finally required; for there is not only
thirty shillings, or triie over seven
| American dollars, to be got for the ordi-
nary Cornish coffin, but death ushers in
| the ioiner's absolute reign for at least for.
weight hours. During that period he ID
| the undertaken, the greatest man in Corn
wall; and in all commands and behests nc
car was ever more implicitly obeyed.
But he cannot provide against accident.
| in the mines. If in the nighttime
| koekiuy Ia heard at his door his good wife