QUEEN FUNERAL NOTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 44, 21 February 1891, Page 3 (Supplement)

QUEEN FUNERAL NOTIONS.

How the Eccentricities of Some Men" Find Play.

The story is told of a certain Frenchman who had been a greab collector of coins, says a writer in " Cassell's Magazine." By his will he directed that his obsequies should be performed with every accompaniment calculated to inspire mirthful feeling. His body was to be wrapped in tanned pigskin- and buried nollinless in a standing position upon a pilo of charcoal. Laurel branches were to bo carried by the mourners, and on returning from the church they wore to throw open the chambers in which his treasures were deposited, and all comers were welcome to help themselves aa they pleased to the contents. It was a sore disappointment to the public, however, to find that before they were admitted the servants of the deceased had decamped with everything that was portable. The wishes of a curious character, who was named Ililkington, better known as 'Squire Hawlcy, wero fully carried out a few years ago at a place near Donchester. He was buried in his own garden amid the graves of his own dead cattle which had been stricken down by rinderpest. He was laid out in full hunting costume, including spur 3 and whip, and was laid in a stone coffin weighing upwards of a ton, which had to be lowered into the grave by means of a crane. His old pony was shot and buried at his feet, and at his head were laid the bodies of his favourite dog and an old fox. All his property was ; left to his groom on condition that these funeral observances were fully carried out; in default the estate was to goto the priest of Donchester for the benefit of the Roman Catholic Church. Tho groom, however, did nob suffer the bequesb to himself to lapse. It is related that a certain crotchety old Yorkshireman some years since left directions that on the day of his burial a greab public breakfast should be given in the town where he might die, and that his coffin, slung upon towels knotted together, should be borne along by relays of men and 'bumped' three times upon a particular heap of stones, and that ' The Lamentations of a Sinner ' should then be sung. A still more important provision was made regarding the presence of mourners in the churchyard. Every man, woman and child who entered the ground with or after tho procession had to receive a dole of sixpense. Never before or since, we are told, was thab churchyard so full of people. A Sussex gentleman named Jack Fuller ordered his executors to bury him in a pyramidal mausoleum in Brightling churchyard. His reason for desiring to bo enclosed in stone above ground was his unwillingness to be eaten by relatives —a process he considered inevitable if buried in the ordinary way. ' The worms,' he declared, ' would eat me, the ducks would cab the worms, and my relatives would eao the ducks.'

A gentleman named Underwood left £6,000 to his sister on condition that she had. him buried in a particular fashion. Six gentlemen were appointed to follow him to the grave, where they ivere to sing the lasb sbanza of the twentieth ode of the second book of Horace. Mourning was forbidden to be worn, no bell had to be tolled, and no relation was to follow the corpse. The six chosen gentlemen were to be the only mourners. The coffin was painted green, and the deceased was buried with his clothes on. Three copies of Horace were placed in the grave with him, together with Bentley's Milton and a Greek Testament. After supper the six mourners sang the ode, all being in sbricb accordance wibh bhe will of the deceased.