The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-02-18
HOW TO DRESS THE DEAD.
Every One Should Attend Their Own
Funeral Properly Dressed.


81 always have maintained that
every man ought to go to his own fun
eral dressed like a gentleman" said
an undertaken with artistic tastes to
a reporter on the Washington Post.
mo matter how many hard knocks he
has had to stand all through life, no
matter If he has had to shift along
with only one suit to his back, and
that hand me down when the strug
gle is all over and done with. he
ought / say to make his last appear
ance dressed in the fashion. The world
owes every man at least one good suit
of clothes, and if it doesn't pay its debt
before his death. it ought to see to 1t
that the account is squared afterward-
sssSvnfi4en ARE more given to freak
burial clothes than smen. Sentiment
is largely. responsible for their fantastlc
ideas They have special predlIec-
ton for wedding gowns. have known
women who have been married for
thirty or forty years to cherish that
enc precious dress through all the ups
and downs of life that they might
wear it again on the last great occa-
sion. These gowns look awfully old
fashioned and have a musty odor APP
propriately suggestive OF the grave az
ter having been done up in lavender
and tissue paper for so many years,
but vanity no longer plays a part in
the scheme of the old ladies' existence,
and stvIe to them is a small matter
compared with the qualification of SEN
timent.
1t brings good luck to be buried
in wedding Clothes one woman told
me shortly before she died
Good luck to whom?' 1 asked
How can that possibly benefit any
body? 1t certainly cannot be much
of a mascot for the mourners. and the
deceased is done with luck, both good
and bad
-. Il .,1
Il don't know for whom she said, but
1 do know that it brings good luck
''She evidently believed it. too, for
when her time came she was laid away
in a wedding outfit that was complete,
even to slippers and bonnet The in
congruity of the headgear as an Access
sorry to a burial toilet was enough to
make an angel weep. 1t was an enor-
NOUS, high crowned white silk affair,
fully fifty years old, and was fearfully
unbecoming to her thin face. but her
relatives had promised that she should
wear 1t and they were courageous
enough to keep their word
1T buried another woman not long
ago dressed in full set of furs. Spite
not sentiment, was at the bottom OF
that exhibition of bad taste. The furs
were very costly. and there had been
a long and bitter dispute among the
female members of the old lady's fam
D. fly as to who should wear them after
she was done with them. AS the time
rel over the prospective ownership
waxed hotter. The old lady herself
was sorely perplexed over the merits
of the various claimants. Now she in
clined toward this enc. now toward
that. Finally she concluded that since
the coveted furs were bound to Gre
ate discord so long as they were above
ground, she would settle the rivalry
and spite the whole brood of scheming
nieces and cousins by wearing the furs
herself to the end of the chapter.
1.-THE relations fumed and fused
over this dictum. and If they had had
their way probably they would have
refused to carry out her Instructions
But the old lady had foreseen this
tempest in the family tearot and had
taken the preca ution to intrust her
post-mortem toilet to disinterested
outsider who had nothing tn gain bv
cisrega riding her wishes. Threats and
ad5urations he'd no effect on that hard
hearted sartcrial executor 81 we put
her ladyshin away bundled IN in
enough sealskin and Persian lamb to
keep her co+'forta BILE on a voyage to
the North Pole
zone of the oldest whirns I have
ever been called upon to humor was
that of the man who insisted upon GO
Ing to his grave wra pped in the tradi-
tionaI winding sheet. He sent for me
several DAYS before he died and ex-
p1afned his fancy. I miSunderstood
him at first; I Thought he meant an or
dinarv white shroud. ] could ren,en-
Der the time. awav back in nv child /
hood DAYS. when 1t was the custom to
clothe both men and women in those
Towing robes. md took it that he
was simply a little old-fashioned AMI
wished a reversal to primitive customs.
But he quickly corrected that impress |
sion.
e II don't men ANYTHING of the |
kind he said. want to be buried