The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-02-16
FOND OF FINE FUNERALS.
french People Make the Last Rites .
Occasion for Great Display.

french People Make the Last Rites IN
Occasion for Great Display.
The love of the French for display
in burial ceremonies has been pointed
out as characteristic of the nation.
The people have pathetic way Of say
ing: although it costs much to live
in Paris it costs still more to die"
This is in measure true, and that it
is so. is due to the fact that the gov
eminent has a monopoly of the work
of burying the dead, and has estab-
lished a scale Of prices by which the
style of funeral is regulated, from
that costing hundreds of dollars to the
one which opens the fosse commune
Common gravel. As a rule the French
are fond of fine funerals. For states
men of the first rank the government
DEGREES a state funeral, which is the
occasion of great display and fire.
quently leads to political demonstra-
tionS, but private funerals are also
costly, and many man who has lived
with the utmost meanness all his life Is
laid to rest with princely pomp. The
door of his residence Is hung with black
curtains, embroidered with silver; his
monogram, in silver, is on all the
mourning coaches which follow the
hearse; the drivers are dressed in black,
with knee breeches, high boots, three
cornered hats and long crepe streamers
on their arms; the horses for the hearse
are caparisoned with sweeping draper
les of black and silver, and on the
hearse itself are plunes and silver fig
ures of angels and cherubs. Then, too.
the custom of sending ont notices Of
the death and invitations to the funeral
is very common, and sometimes those
notices are as elaborate and as elegant
Iy engraved as the most expensive we'd
ding cards or invitations to ball.
In striking contrast with the de-
corous funerals of the rich are the
scenes when the body of q very poor
person is to be laid in the grave. The
city is strict in regard to them The
body can only be kept twenty-four
hours from the time of death, and il
must be buried in a coffin made of thin
deal boards, implanted, unvarnished
and fastened with ropes lest it should
*
in a hearse which is hardly better
than dray. At the fosse commune the
priest is allowed to include six funerals
in one service. Fully to explain the
necessity for the fosse commune il is
necessary to say word about French
graveyards. They are governed en-
tirely different from ours, and their
object ms to be to afford graves to
the millions who are dead without
taking too much space from the mil
lions who live. In certain parts of the
cemetery graves may be bought out
right, though at enormous prices, and
remain forever in possession of the
family. In other sections the graves
are bought singly for five years from
the date of burial, and at the end of
the specified time the bones are taken
up and buried in the fosse commune.
The fosse communicate lowest grave
of all-is a ditch twelve feet deep,
twelve feet wide, and as long as the
size of the graveyard permits. Here
the collins are put side by side in two
rows, the heads meeting in the center.
When certain number are in the
ditch il is closed and on another layer
of earth more collins are afterward
laid. When the ditch is filed to the
surface another one alongside is
opened. and SO on until the available
space is used Up. Then the first ditch
is reopened and fresh collins are pu. in
in place of the old ones, which have
decaved -TaltimOre SIM