A FUNERAL THAT COST MILLIONS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3163, 18 May 1931, Page 7

A FUNERAL THAT COST MILLIONS.

"Two years ago" (writes a contributor to "John o' London's Weekly") "a party of Manchu nobles visited the Eastern Hills, eighty miles outside Peking, to investigate the rumor that the Imperial tombs had been violated and robbed. Outside one magnificent mausoleum they found the discolored body of an old woman lying beside her open coffin beneath a pall embroidered with the Imperial Dragon. This mausoleum had cost more than a million pounds to erect, and during her lifetime the old woman had made frequent journeys to it to satisfy herself that it was being kept in readiness for her body. "Twenty years before, she had been carried there for the last time under a catafalque borne by eighty : four bearers. Her funeral had cost three hundred thousand pounds, and with her were buried jewels valued at six and a quarter million pounds. The gold thread mattress on which she lay was worth £10,500, the pearls and other precious stones with which it was bedecked £112,500. The pearls about her body—one rope was wound around her no less than nine times —were valued at £1,500,000; and her pearl headdress at £1,250,000. The robbers had taken everything. Some of the pearls have since been recovered from dealers in Peking, but the bulk remains un traced."

THOUGHTFUL.

It was a long play, and nearly mid night when the curtain was rung up on the fourth act, disclosing an actor sitting wearily at a table. Somehow his appearance, instead of occasioning applause, created an under-current of sympathy. All was stillness; he had not yet spoken. At last a member of the audience ventured to express the sentiments of the house. "I hope we are not keeping you up, sir," he suggested, kindly. Screams came from the drawingroom. Mrs. Cohen dashed to the scene. "Vat's the matter?" she asked her husband. "It's only little Issy," was the reply. "He vants a sailing boat." "An' vat have you given him?" inquired Mrs. Cohen. "Two little smacks." An Englishman became bald. He was distressed over his appearance. He spent large sums on hair restorers, but in vain. An Aberdonian became bald. He sold his brush and comb.

"Doris," said her mother, "if that young man of yours asks you to marry him, tell him to speak to me." "Yes, mother," said Doris; "but suppose he doesn't ask me?" "In that case, ask me to speak to him."

By the time some women have dressed for a function they arc out of fashion