The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-01-19
By Joe +. Herriford.

Most people agree that the customs
which we continue at funerals are lit.
tie short of ghoulish and that certain
reforms in these ceremonies are long
past due. Yet it seems that no great
number of our people have had the
moral courage to take a stand strong
enough to accomplish any tangible
changes.
Other races, except those unciviliz-
ed, have long ago abandoned the grue-
some burial rites which we still cling
to even in the face of our better in
telligence
In the first place, we refuse to give
up the notion that all funerals should
| be held on Sunday, even if the body
of the dead must be kept unburied
several days for this purpose. This
is only the catering to a vain desire
for show and for the attendance of
as many curious, disinterested per-
sons as possible. Our funerals are
all too long, especially in the cases
of persons in any way prominent in
social or professional life. Bereaved
relatives of the dead are put through
the terrible ordeal of sitting some
! times for nearly a whole day in un-
comfortable, lily ventilated churches
while countless eulogies of doubtful
sincerity are being pourned out by
apparently everyone whom the de-
ceased ever met. Common sense
strongly appeals against this sort of
indulgence, but it is kept up just the
same, supposedly with the idea that it
measures the popularity of the dead.
No one can explain just why our
people believe that the spirit of the
dead cannot repose in peace if the
body is honored in a place open to
the outdoor air. Suffice it that from
the time breath leaves the tortured
clay it is kept either closely shut up
in a small room of a home or in the
sacred precincts of a church into
which no fresh air is allowed to en-
ter. The embalmed body is kept in .
an embalmed atmosphere filled with |
embalmed germs of all sorts of dis .
eases ostensibly to hurry up other .
funerals
The practice of opening the casket
at the close of the services in order
that the morbidly inclined may pass
in review over the pallid features Of .
the dead has long fallen into disuse
by every body except the Colored pe&
pie. No one will dispute that it is
unsanitary and unholy. Ie serves no
aim whatever that has the slightest
claim upon a reverent treatment of
the dead. Those who have any dis
tinctreason for desiring to view the
face of the dead could much better
indicate the element of respect by
calling at the residence of the family
prior to the hour of the public fu-
neral.
There ought to be a law carrying
the death penalty for those who in
sist upon lifting the suffering mourn
ers up to take what they call "a last
view of the deceased and to display
their souls deepest anguish in the
presence of many who happen to be |.
present out of curious desirt for this /
very heartrending climax Nothing
could be more innuman and more
lacking in good, common sense. There
is no more reason why the family |
should be the last to view the body
than that they should BIT the first to
meet the departed spirit in the other
world
If certain secret societies insist |
upon holding ritualistic ceremonies
over the dead at the unholy hour of
midnight the attendance of the fam
lily should by no means be allowed
and no place should be arranged for
this display of physical endurance and
dispair from those already bowed
down in nerve-breaking grief. This all
looks like barbarism, at least like
The long string of resolutions and
condolences, all of which sound alike
and are usually poorly read should
not be imposed upon the ceremonies I
at all but might be sent to the mourn
ing family to be read, If desired, at
some future time and preserved for
what they are intended to be worth.
| have been asked many times to
write such condolences for persons
whom l never knew in life and con-
corning whom l could have no intelli-
gent knowledge. All this is supreme
vanity and all of it should have been
long ago.