The times., 1901-03-10
Love OF FUNERAL DISPLAY
Chinese Spend Millions Each Year
in Burying Their Dead.
The CntnfaIques often Left I'm the
streets of PeLia for Weeks-Cof-
fins Borne i'm Proccsstous Laden
With Viands and Queer Figures.

fins Borne in PFoccssious Laden
with Viauds and Queer Figures.
1t is in his funeral services that the
Chinaman INDUCES his propensity for ex-
travangance and Oddity TO the utmost. \
rich Chinaman in Tientsin recently eN-
pended $4,000 on the funeral OF his
mother and laid up for himself immense
stores of credit on the other side of the
Styx. Forty millions OF dollars worth
OF paper cash. IL is said. is burned ev-
cry year in China at the graves of an
cestors. and an incredible amount of pa
per cash can be bought for a cent. Yet
lavish as the Chinaman is In his expendi-
tgre upon the dead, he viii often leave a
coffin waiting for year or for ten
years in an exposed position by the road
side until the necromancers shall tell
him the propitious hour and place to
hurry his dead. In some places he buries
the remains. or at least what is left OF
them after years of dissolution. in earth
IN pots where thousands can be slowed
away in a very small enclosure.
The funeral professions in the streets
Of the great cities of China are often ex-
ccedingly fncouyenient TO the passing
traveller. All traffic must make way FOR
the car Of death. and in the narrow
streets of the southern cities a stranger
must crowd himself into the narrowest
possible compass. squeezing into a door
way or obIiterating himself into a door
WY against a wall until the nOurners
have passed through the street
In Pekin. where the streets are wider,
the catafalQue is often built in the mid
die of the roadway and is left there for
days and weeks. filling up the middle OF
the street and obiging every passing
camel and donkey and rafting, creaking
crowd by on the sidewalk under the avn
i1gS, to the discontinue Of foot paSsea-
gers and the various open-afr Venders
VINO do their business on the sidewalk
thus giving the dead the right of way
never seems to strike the average Pekin-
csc.
This is all of piece with the national
love of funeral display and heartIess crec-
odile tears, as they seem, at least TO
Western eyes. An immense trumpet is
even used sometimes. which Is worked
ike garden pump to sob out the boo
hoo of the afflicted relatives The more
unedrthiy and heaTtrendiug it's sObS the
better they seem to be pleased. For a
great funeral all the beggars and raga-
mullins and fmDudent small boys in the
vicinity are hired. They are decked out
in tawdry clothes. or perhaps their rags
are not even disguised in any way but
they are at least given banners to carry
and are hired to vail and sob as II their
hearts were breaking. The dlHi indifer-
ent, stolid faces of the men and the rOg-
ufsh, mfscheviOuS smiles on the boys
belle their walls and give a very unreal
air OF hypOCritical sorrow to the average
Chinese funeral though doubtless there
is much genuine sorrow and as many real
heartaches as in other lands.
When the coffin is borne in the funeral
procession. it is often covered up with at
sorts of gTotesque pastebOZrd counteTfcits
of the things which the departed is likely
70 want in his future journeys in the land
beyond. A mock house and mock horse
are often thus carried. a paper cow TO
furnish milk and meat, paper fowls TO lay
eggs for him and paper servants to do
his bidding OftentfmeS, too, a tempting
array of real viands Is carried in the pro-
cessiOn, a roast pig. a dozen roast ducks.
bread and rice and fruit They are not
left to waste their sweetness on the
desert air" but after they have remained
a { the graves mouth for little while
and the spirits have shifted the delicious
odOrs they are divided up among the sor-
rowing relatives and friends. who have
such a feast as many of them have not
enjoyed for ays.-CosmopOlitan-