The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-02-27
SOME cuRIous MpIrApns.


street uptown and patronized almost
exclusively by regular customers, says
the Sun, was found the other day a
volume of epitaphs. The book has
long been out of print, and there are
now only few copies Of it in existence
At the time this volume was publish
ed the epitaphs were customary. This
Is shown by the author, who, after re-
producing those found in grayeyards in
this country and elsewhere, devotes a
number of pages to what he considers
appropriate lines to suit the circum-
stances surrounding the life and death
of almost any person.
Some of the most humorous as we'll as
the quaintest epitaphs in the collection
are taken from church yards In New
Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and
Connecticut. Usually the lines tell not
only of the life of the dead person but
the cause of death.
One custom about writing epitaphs
was that of punning. Here is one from
New Haven churchyard on Henry
Miles:
This tombstone is a milestone; and
why SO?
Because beneath 1t lies Miles; he's miles
below.
A little man he was--a dwarf in SIZE
Yet now stretched out at least miles
long he lies.
space SO wide,
There's Miles in length and breadth and
room beside.
Here's one on Thomas Huddlestone:
Here lies Thomas Huddlestone. Reader
don't smile
But reflect as this tombstone you
view,
That death, who killed him, in a very
short while,
Will huddle stone upon you.
In a Connecticut town, near New
Haven, a man died who had peculiar
wen upon the top of his head His
children erected a stone to his memory,
and upon 1t were these lines
Our father lies beneath this sod;
His spirits gone unto his God;
We never more shall hear his tread.
Nor see the wen upon his head.
In Hartford, Conn, cemetery is the
following:
Here lies two babies so dead as nitts,
De Lord He kilt dem with His ague fits.
When dey was too good to live NIT me
He took dem up to live NIT He.
So He did.
A German in Railway, NJ j., noted
Years ago for his ability to compose and
carve eDitaphs, received the following
from German, which he carved on the
tombstone as requested
My wife, Susan, is dead. If she'd had
life till next Friday she'd been dead
shust two weeks. AS a tree falls so
must she stand. All things is impossi-
BILE NIT God.
In a Burling. Ia. cemetery is the fol-
lowing:
Beneath this stone our baby lays,
He neither cries nor hollers;
He lived just one and twenty days.
And cost us forty dollars.
* Salem, Mass, church yard has
tombstones with many queer inscrip-
tons upon them. Here is one:
Here lies the body of Nicolas Gum
Who died in the year 1901;
Pray for the soul of Nicolas Gum
You may if you please or let it alone,
For it's all one to Nicolas Gum,
Who died in the year 1901.
The following is from New London,
Conn. ciurchyard:A
Poor Martha Shell has gone away,
Her would if she could, but her couldn't
stay;
Her had bad legs and a baddish
cough;
1t was her two bad legs that carried
her off.
The prolific Mrs Jennings in a
churchyard in Elizabeth, N. T., had the
following inscribed to her memory:
Some have children, some have none,
Here lies the mother of twenty-one.
Here is one from cemetery near
Rochester, N. Y:
From life to death-a sudden stroke
His head was by saw gate broke;
The purple gore in streams did run;
He left a wilder and one son.
The following is from the tombstone
of a smuggler shot by excise officers:
Here lies
Killed by XII.
On a stone in a churchyard near Ban
gor, Me, is this inscription:
Sacred to the memory of James H.
R-rrl, who died Aug. the 9Th, 1900 His
widow, who mourns as one who can be
comforted, aged a. and possesses every
qualification for a good wife, lives at
street, in village.
Near by the above is the following:
Here lies the body of William Dent.
Death turned UP his heels and away he
went.
From a cemetery in an Ohio town are
gathered the following:
The Lord saw good, was looping off
wood,
And down fell me from the tree.
/ met with check and broke my neck,
And so death Topped off me.
over the grave of an infant months
old occur these lines:
Since / am SO quickly done for,
I wonder what I was begun for.
Here is another:
Under this sod
And under these trees
I.ieth the bod
Y of Solomon Pease.
He's not in his bole
But only his pod;