Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1898 — Funerals Conducted on Skates. [ARTICLE]

Funerals Conducted on Skates.

About fifty miles south of Berlin, in the Spreewalde, on the borders of Bohemia, funerals on the ice are of no uncommon occurrence. Every one is perfectly at home on skates. So the young men, skating, take the ropes attached to the sleigh on which the coffin is borne; the old men, women and children follow, skating behind. The skates used are old-fashioned in character, tied with string. The men wear black coats and hats on such occasions, but the women vary their costume with white hats, scarfs, and aprons. In Iceland the same mode prevails except that snow-shoes are used in lieu of skates. In Venice, all bodies are conveyed in boats to certain islands in the Adriatic, used as cemeteries. In Kamtchatka the dead are drawn to their graves on sleighs by dogs.