Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1875 — The Wrong Funeral. [ARTICLE]

The Wrong Funeral.

The other day an ex-official of this county went into the Sheriff’s office and said he had just been to “ poor Tom McNamara’s funeral.” Then he fell into a series of reflections on the mutability of human affairs, addressing his remarks to himself or to anybody else who might happen to hear him. He looked very grave and sorrowful. “ Pqor Tom,” he said—“ I declare you wouldn’t have known him —was worn away, before he died, almost to a skeleton—it’s awftil what changes come over a man sometimes before lie pegs out—plenty of young, stout fellows about here may go down the same way. I never felt anything touch me so in all my life—he was pale as a fresh shirt-bosom, and cheeks all hollowed out, and even the pock-marks in his face gone. I tell you what it is, I didn’t know him myself.” Then one of the deputies asked him ho jv he knew Tom looked that way. “ Why, I’ve just been to his funeral.” “ I guess not.” “ Well, I ought to know. I’ve just come from there. I knew him ever since he oame to Pittsburgh, and I wasn’t going to let him be buriea without taking a last look at him.” “Why,” replied the deputy, “ I was at the funeral myself, and I could hold up my hand and say you wasn’t there at all.” “Of course I was there. I just drove in from the country—haven’t been over home yet.” “ Well,” asked the deputy, “ where did you go to the funeral ?” “Why, up on Cliff street, of course, where foe poor fellow lived.” “ I thought it was something like that,” said foe other. “Tom McNamara never did reside on foe hill. He lived all his life in this city, and died in foe Ninth Ward, and was buried from there. You have been to the wrong place, old man.” So it was. He had attended the wrong funeral. He had moralized over foe changes in appearance of foe corpse of a man whom he had never seen in life. But he attended a funeral, at all events.—Pittsburgh Leader.