The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-22
NOT DEAD UNTIL BURIED.
Nubar PRshR's 2O-MiIe Ride with a
khedive's COrpse-ROyaI MOckery
of Life in Death.
From the New York VOID.

shall, kitashirakawa, who succumbed the
other day to fever while in command Of
the Mikado's army of occupation in the
still unsubdued Chinese island of For
mosa. japanese court etiquette requires
that no publication or official intimation
of the death of a member OF the reigning
family shall be made until after the cell
ebration of certain mortuary ceremonies
in his or her own palace.
The dead prince was. therefore, brought
all the way back from Formosa to Toxic
as live man. The general order an
nouncing his departure to the troops un-
der his command in Formosa bore his sig
nature, or what purported TO be such.
The man of war that bore his corpse to
the Japanese naval arsenal and SEAPORT
or Yokosuka flew mo- emblem of mourning
at its masthead; meals were served in
the cabin where the dead prince lay, and
the military and naval daily reports were
made to his deaf ears every morning and
evening, Just as were he alive.
On arrival at Yokosuka he was disem-
barked and received with naval and mill
tary honOrs, as IL he had been alive, and
his corpse, arrayed in the uniform of field
marshal, was seated in a saloon carriage
on the railroad. his star taking their
places around him. Arriving at Toxic,
he was conveyed, not to a hearse but
to an ordinary coupe seated in which he
was driven to his palace, and it was only
on the following day that the public and
official announcement of his demise was
made.
The prince was weIl-known in this coun-
try, and spent some time in New York
Just before the outbreak of the war
with China. Few people We're aware that
ne at one time bore the title OF mikado.
A cousin of the present emperor, he oc-
cupted the post of prince-abbot of the
most important monastery in Japan, at
Toxic, when the war between the tykoon
and the present mikado broke out in 1867.
The tykoon, with view of STRENGTHENING
his cause. set up the young prince-abbot
as an opposition emperor and mikado,
his lineage being fully equal to that of
the real mikado. When the revolution
was brought to a close by the victory of
the present ruler of Japan, he graciously
pardoned his cousin in consequence of his
youth. sent him to the United States and
Europe for period of seven years to i'm
prove his mind by travel, and on his return
overwhelmed him with henors. The dead
prince was persona gratissma at Berlin,
and was held in high esteem by the late
Emperor William, Eass well as bylbis son
The gruesome ride or the dead Japanese
prince through the streets of Toxic, as
If alive, recalls to mind similar drive
of which Nubar Pasha, who had just re-
signed the Office of prime minister of
Egypt to take up his permanent resi-
dence in France, must retain a vivid
strangled by his two ignoble boy favor
ties in his gloomy and somber desert
palace of Benha. twenty miles from Cal
70, where he lived life that can only
be compared to that of the Roman En-
peror T4berius at Capri, Nubar was gov
ernor of Cairo. The news of the des-
pots death was secretly brought TO him
in the dead of night He hurried off to
the palace of Benha as fast as the fieetest
horse could carry him, and on arriving
there placed himself in communication
with the head eunuch, giving strict orders
that not q soul should be permitted to
stir from the palace.
Ordering the state carriage to be
brought to the private entrance, he as
sisted by the head eunuch, placed the
body of the strangled ruler in a sitting
posture within it, and, taking his own
seat opposite, as usual the eunuch,
mounting the box drove the twenty miles
to Cairo surrounded by guards and the
ship, being compelled to use the greatest
care to keep the corpse from being tum-
bled forward upon himself by the Jolting
of the carriage. Although il was day
light when he reached the city, and the
streets were crowded, he arrived at the
citadel without exciting suspicion, and,
hold to be trained on the city and pro
claimed Prince Said as viceroy, thus
crushing the conspiracy which had been
organized for the object of bringing Prince
Hami to the throne.
At most of the European courts il is
to this day customary for dead person.
ages of royal and imperial rank to hold
a sort of levee or reception just before
their interment. when all the great dig
nitaries of the realm and members of the
court pass. one by one before the august
and clammy hand Of the corpse.
Even still more strange are the cerer
monies that used to be in force in France
when that country still enjoyed the adj
madagascar electromagnetic mon
archical regime. During the entire
forty days that the embalmed corpse of
the illustrious dead lay in state in the
Cathedral of st. Denis the court ceremo-
MES were carried on within the abbey as
though the monarch or prince stu lived
The royal or imperial table would be set
every night in the refeotory and the
grand master of the ceremonies, when din
ner was brought up, would proceed in
where the corpse lay rigid and cold, and
with a low obeisance. would exclaim:
Sire, the dinner is served according
to your majestyS orders.
Then the Chamberlain standing on duty
beside the corpse would respond with great
dignity:
pleased to dine already and desires to
remain undisturbed, Whereupon the
master of the ceremonies would back out
with the three customary low obeisances
to the dead and would order the meal to
After ali, the lying in state of deceased
monarchs and princes, embalmed,
shaver. coiffed and dressed in full uni
form to give a life-like semblance to the
corpse, is a part and parcel of this species
rovsi parsonage no matter if the breath
has left his or her body, shall be regard
ed as alive until finally laid in the tomb.
1t is an etiquette tnaI DelonSs 10 a Dy-
gone age, and which should find no place
in our present enlightened era, since it
savors of something akin to mockery
and cannot but be most painful to those
near and dear relatives VINO have been
bereaved.
Yet none of them dare omit it, not
even when. as In the case OF poor Crown
his skull and the left side of his head
were entirely crushed in by those who
took part in that terrible tragedy, and IL
n
the physicians and embalmers to conceal
from the public the traces of the injuries
which he had sustained.
The single instance where the lying in
state has been omitted in modern times
is that of the late King John of Saxony,
a fact which gave rise to the rumor that
and been detained, in consequence of his
homicidal mahia, a close prisoner in one
of the most inaccessible monasteries of
Saxon Switzerland.