The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-01-12
OUR eRUEsoME CUSTOMS.
By Joe E. Hereford.

BY Joe Il. HerrltOru.
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. B~ereaved
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 u
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 pe0
pie. No one will dispute that it is
u~nsanitary and unholy. lie 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 a curious desirt for this
very heartrending climax. Nothing
could be more inhuman 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
t midnight the attendance of the fam
t 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