Year: 1877



 more an occasion for rejoicing than one for mourning. A yet more merry-minded man was a so-called Esmisanthrope," who died at Mont Gaillard in 1922. He left instructions that all the musicians in the place were to be invited to his funeral, to tighten the march to tho churchyard by playing minuets, waltzes and hunting tunes. His house and the church were to be decorated with ever- greens and flowers in honor of the event, and his property was to go to the relative who laughed the heartiest dur ing the celebration of the burial-rites. Another eccentric Frenchman, who had spent his life in collecting gems and coins, wished his obsequies to be per formed with every accompaniment cal culated to inspire mirthful feelings. His body was to be wrapped in tanned pig skin, and buried coffinless in standing position upon pile of charcoal. The followers" were to carry laurel branches, and upon their return from the church the doors of his treasure chamber were to be thrown open to all corners, that they might help themselves nests were hardly likely to be obeyed; for, in anticipation of the general scramble, before the collectors breath was out of his body, bis servants de- camped with everything that was porta- ble.

 Dame Margaret Thompson, who lived and died in Boyle street, in the days of Queen Anne, was of Q different way of thinking. She had never found any flowers so gratifying to her sense of smell as good Scotch snuff, and there fore desired her old servant, Sarah, to see that her body was covered with it before the coffin-lid was screwed down. She was also to strew the threshold with two bushels of snuff preparatory to her dead mistress being carried across it by six of the greatest snuff takers to be found in the parish, and to secure the same number of old maids for pallbearers, and supply them with boxes of snuff for use on the road; Sarah herself, walking before the coffin, and distributing 'Severy twenty yards, large handful of Scotch snuff to the ground and upon the ground" while the clergyman was expected to take a certain quantity of the same, not ex- ceeding pound, as he walked in the procession,-his fee of four pounds de- pending upon his carrying out the dame's whim in that respect.

 John Oliver, a jolly Sussex miller, had tomb built for himself near his mill at Highdown hill thirty years be- fore he was ready to occupy it. When he came to that pass his body was put into a white coffin and borne to it's long, prepared lodging by eight men clad in white; the burial service being read by a girl of twelve, who afterward preached osity-mongers, some two thousand strong. Weary ot making watches that would not go, Charles V. took to morti- flying his flesh and making himself miserable generally, until he brought himself to such melancholy pass that nothing would do but he must celebrate his own obsequies, before he was ready to take his proper part in them. No opposition was offered to the indulging of his whim; although Charles was only an ex-monarch, his will was law in the little domain he ruled in his re- tirement. Accordingly tomb was erected in the monastery chapel; a coffin made; and all the necessary ''properties" for the performance pro- vided. At the time appointed, the monks and the imperial domestics, carrying black tapers, fell in behind the coffin and the shroud-enwrapped hero of the strange comedy; and all, making believe to the best of their ability, marched with solemn faces and slow steps to the chapel; where Charles, resigning his part of chief mOurner, was laid in the coffin to listen to the chanting of his own requiem, and join audibly in the prayer for the repose of his yet unparted soul. Then the coffin and its tenant were deposited in the tomb, and the assistants at this odd ceremony retired, carefully closing the chapel doors as they departed. When he was tired of his solitary confine- ment, Charles arose and returned to lis apartments, to be seized the next day with fever which quickly rendered real funeral necessary-a funeral celebrated in much more regal fashion than the mock one which preceded it.

 On the 1st of Decem per, 1865, a for eigner called at the office of the Paistow registrar, and registered the death of Vital Douat, producing medical cer- tificate showing that person died on the 29th of November of aneurism of the heart. The same morning the sex ton of the Roman Catholic cemetery at Low Leyton received instructions to get grave ready by the ensuing Sun day. In the afternoon man, calling himself Monsieur Rubini, bought a ready-made coffin at an undertaker's in the Mile end Road, and ordered the handles to be removed from the sides to the ends, and an extra thick leaden lining to be put to it. On the Sunday he appeared again, called in two labOrers who were passing by the shop, and en- gagged them to carry his purchase to the Shoreditch railway station, where he and it were booked for Leystonstone. Upon getting there he hired cart, put himself and the coffin in it and was driven to St. Patrick's Cemetery, where the coffin was taken into the chapel the service read over it, and it was con- isgned to the earth. A few weeks after. ward Madam Douat sent in claim to an insurance office in Paris for the sum of hundred thousand francs, due to her in consequence of the death of hel husband in Enuland The officials