Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-09-21

smote the thigh and breast. and owelt
apart unclean. Elegies we're specially
composed for the occasion and recited
with great solennity by chosen orators
or embodied in song and sung by the
hired mourners and chorus.
Vast crowds accompanied the dead to
the sepulcher, to which the poetic i'm
agery of the east gave the name of the
everlasting house" 1t was generally
situated outside the limits of the city or
village, though in the case of kings and
/ very distinguished men the ashes of the
dead were allowed, even among the
Jews, to repose within the walls. These
sepulchers, as is the case of the Cave of
Macpelah and the City of David on
Mount Zion, Were preserved for the
members of one family, and to be buried
without the accompanying ceremonial
or to be laid to rest in any but the tomb
of his forefathers was to be buried
with the burial of an ass, the sign of a
signal disgrace. These caves and maui
soleums, generally very magnificent
and standing all by themselves apart
from man, were whitewashed on the
last month (Adar) of every year, so as
to be conspicuous objects to those who
were journeying that way not to come
too near them lest they should be de-
filed. To this Job alludes (chap. iii.
13, IA Then had 1 been at rest, with
kings and counselors of the earth which
built desolate places for themselves;
desolate cities, houses which no man
inhabiteth, which are ready to become
heaps"
AS soon as the mourners returned the
persons who lived near them prepared
meat and drink for their refreshment
after such a season of suffering and
grief This was sometimes denomi-
mated the cup of consolation" the
bread of men," of ''mourners' of 'tbit-
terness.' Sometimes, however, the
mourners themselves gave an entertain
ment after the burial, as appears to,
have been the case in the time OF Christ
"a practice to which allusi0n is made
by Josephus, and from which doubt
less Is derived the funeral dole of bread
or money or the funeral baked meats
of more modern times. The mourning
itself was kept up for at least eight
days after the interment, and in the
case of the mighty ones of the earth for
thirty days. Thus Aaron and Moses
were mourned for that space by the
Israelites, just as in the Roman Cath
Ole church the months mind for the
departed is religiously kept nowadays
and royal court goes into strict
mourning for thirty days-as in the
present case 81 the duke of Clarence and
Avondale.
Inc Grief exhibited by the Greeks On
sucb occasions, that of those who sor-
TO- we'd as if they had no hope, was of
the same sort as that of the Orientals,
from whom they copied it even to its
extremes. 1t was SO marked as to be
made the subject of ridicule by Lucian
Ode uctu). Indeed they went SO far in
their extravagances as to bestow re-
proaches even upon the dead themselves
because they did not remain in life, ut
tered accusations and curses against the
gods, and otherwise rendered them
selves ridiculous and absurd.
Among heather nations it was like
wise the custom on the occasion of royal
funerals or those of grandees to offer
hecatombs of sheep and oxen, and not
infrequently to sacrifice the lives of
human beings-often captives and
Slaves-a practice continued by the
Druids and kept up to the present day
by such barbarous and savage poten-
tates as the king of Dahomey.
In great contrast stands out the SIM
plicity of such funeral as that of the
heir presumptive to the throne of En-
0lapd.-N- Y. Times