Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1875 — Weddings and Funerals. [ARTICLE]

Weddings and Funerals.

No matter bow strai'efie 1 the stances of a family which lias the slightest pretensions to respectability may be, , there are, two occasions op which it -.nust be extravagant, and that is when one of its number marries or dies. Au ostentatious wedding is considered quite as ind ispensable as an ostentatious funeral. To get married or to get buried iu wliat is called a “ proper and becoming manner,” either rite must he of a sort calculated to impress neighbors. There' is, of course, more excuse for a pretentious wedding than for a pretentious funeral. The former is a natural occasion for rejoicing; and in many classes of society holiday making of any .sort is invariably attended by a show of finery. Prudent people, it is true, might say that the bride ought to wear a dress which will be of use to her afterward, and that the bridegroom ought not to plunge into expenses which may seriously hamper his whole future. But then people are not always disposed to 'listen to the dictates* of prudence. Marriages are comparatively rare things in the history of most households. The most humble sometime* have a wish to dazzle the eyes of their friends, and to prove to them that, like Tony Lumpkin, in Goldsmith’s comedy, when he proposes to go to the “ Roratorio,” he knows what is “ genteel as well as they.”

But if people will spend the money which they can ill afford on a splendid wedding, there is at least, as we say, some excuse for it. Whether as much can be urged in behalf of our cumbrous and costly funerals will probably be asserted by few sensible men. A modern funeral is as hideous a masquerade as could well be devised, and yet the old, bizarre, barbaric custom is obstinately kept up. The friends and relatives of the deceased person, however much they may have been, at other times, in favor of economy and simplicity in such matters, have not the moral courage to act on their convictions. They fear that people may imagine that 3ome slight is being put on the departed. At such a moment they cannot consent to count the cost. The tall, black feathers on top of the hearse are quite aaexpensive as they are ugly; but then, they say, others have them —and why not we ? In many cases the first violent shock of grief makes folks strangely sensitive to outward opinion. They would have all the world to know how deeply the deceased was beloved. To haggle about expense at a time like this would seem to them to be a sort of sacrilege. They cannot inquire into the undertaker’s charges; on the contrary, they generally expect him to have everything done well and becomingly, so that the last tribute of respect shall not be wanting. Naturally, the undertaker has his traditions regarding what is well and becoming; and* as a matter of course, he has his little profits opt of the loan of the hearse and the huge feathers. With an indifferent acquiescence' the family are glad to find him taking the whole affair into his hands and wash their own of the gloomy business. At other times they might be more prudent, but at this particular time they blindly surrender themselves and their purses. Proposals to reform this state of affairs have more than once been mooted both in America and in England. In the latter country, where the ostentation is still greater, the necessity of simplicity and less expense appears now to be generally recognized and a society has recently been formed in the fashionable circles of London to dispense with many of the customary “ trappings of woe.” With us, too, a decided stand has latterly been taken in some parts against this funeral frippery, and in Chicago a number ol clergymen had the question of reform under consideration already some months ago. But entirely independent of the financial objections to the present system of burials, the prevailing dismal black, the hue of blank despair and wretchedness, speaks no less strongly in favor of its abolishment. No more striking contrast can be conceived than that presented between the simple, picturesque and beautiful customs obtaining in several continental countries at the present day and those connected with the English and American burial of the dead. At the latter the emblems of Christian faith and hope are chiefly conspicuous only by their absence; there are no flowers, no music, nothing bright, cheerful and beautiful, in order to testify the belief of the mourners that the deceased had reached a happier sphere. Such a, funeral, as it passes along the street, seems to darken the whole heavens. Very little pity or piety is evoked by the procession, which recalls the somber and mock-heroic mysteries of the Castle of Otranto. Very different, indeed, would be the appearance of a white and gold bier, such as one sees in many European cities, with the coffin almost bidden by flowers, the last gift of loving friends. —Chicago Times.