Page 6 Advertisements Column 5

Dunstan Times, Issue 2488, 5 July 1909, Page 6

THE HUMOURS OF UNDERTAKERS It will not be the fault of undertakers’ journals if death shall not soon become ghastly ludicrous through their ways of advertising. It is said of the incorrigible French humourist, Rabelais, that before breathing his last he had candlss constructed in such a way that when the mourners sat beside his bier after all was over the lights went off as Roman candles, to the horror and amazement of the grief-strifcKen relatives. This may be intentional humour, but the work of enterprising undertakers in this department or human endeavour appears to be wholly unintentional and even unconscious. One of them, for instance, says of a recently published novel that ** It has the purity of spring water, the sparkle ot champagne. the soft intoxication of delight and the strong, sweet essence of truth which permeates and makes wholesome the mental cl taught. The author * * *is the gifted writer of the 11 So-and-So Casket Company s announcements." Elsewhere it tells of a gentleman who “ lived to the ripe old age o! 76, respected by all and by loving relatives and friends. He was laid at rest in one of the ' Blank Company’s coffins’ with plush and oxidized handles and exquisitely trimmed." account in the same journal says that " in the casket line" a certain house " is jogging along at a pood gait, gaining a patron here and there without losing a single customer anywhere, which seems to be impossible when the transitory nature of man is taken into account. But all "casket" men are not cheerful. Sometimes they take a depressed view o. things when business is not and one of them writes from Winfield, in Kansas, in the following doleful words : “We may brag about our climate all we please, but I want to tell you it is death to the undertakers. II is harcl|on them all the year, but this winter has been distressingly so. Here it is the 24th day of the month, and there has not been a coffin delivered within 12 miles of Winfield during the month." It is lucky for imperious Cmsar that he died and turned to clay before the days of ■ caskets” and undertakers’ journals. Otherwise advertisers might have turned his lugubrious corpse to a more singular use than that of stopping a hole to keep the wind away. JONES’S MUSEUM. [BY JONES HIMSELF.] A museum is a place that isn’t open on Sundays. One of the best known museums in London is the British Museum, which is so popular that in the summer time several people have been known to go up and sit on the seats outside the entrance. The chief features of this museum are its antiquities — I a number of the attendants there having I been on duty for many years. It contains several mummies of dead-and-gone kings, who have been dead for three thousand years and arc likely to remain so for some time. Then there are wonderful writings on stone. Thousands of years ago one of ti.-e children of Israel threw a brick and made a dent in the wall, and now the scientists are trying to translate the dent to see if It authorises restitution of conjugal rights and marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. I feel sure that it will interest you to learn that I once started a museum myself. (After I had done it I started for Fiji. It wasn't so large as the British Museum, oi course, because I had to come by all my relics honestly. I was a young man then, and wouldn't listen to the advice of my friends. I had read in a book somewhere | that a young man was pretty sure to accomplish his purpose if he had only energy, tact, 1 and brains. I had all these, and a new pair of trousers besides, that had never been worn. Many of our great men began life entirely without capital, and I had already got that far along the road to success. I had an idea that I would open in a small way, with two or three freaks of nature and an elephant or so. As the scheme developed, however, I had to give up the last item, I To begin with, there was no shop in oi« , neighbourhood where I could get a conple of elephants on trust till Saturday, or or easy terms of half-a-crown a month ; and [ then, if I had got them, I had nowhere to keep them out of business hoars. The 1 neighbours would have been pretty sure to I object to my keeping elephants in the back I garden, even if I erected a fowl-run for ' them. I accordingly confined my attention to the phenomena. There was a young man in die next street who stood six feet four in his stockings, and I thought that, by brushing nis hair up straight and putting corks in his boots, I could make him pass for the tallest giant of his size in the world. After that I let to work to collect some novelties of startling interest. I flattered myself that -.he sensation attending the opening of my museum would almost rival the'great public j rejoicing we had the day the police station was burnt down. Special attention was I paid to the humourous department, because [ had read somewhere that the world owes 1 debt of gratitude to those who make it ,augh. I hired an empty shop for one day, and qave a written agreement not to sell intoxicating liquor or perform Shakespeare on the I premises. Besides the giant I had a wonderful Spotted Baby— recovering, I understood, from a mild spring rash—and a Bearded Lady. A friend and I were the bearded lady by turns throughout the day. I also had some fresh air from Palestine in a glass bottle, hermetically sealed, a French penny said to have been touched by Napoleon Bonaparte, and the remains of a jujube in a , class box, attributed to Julius Caesar. I had ! a firm belief in the value of liberal adver--1 t i s i n g t the art of which I had thoroughly I mastered. I inserted a couple of lines in the [ " Wanted” column of our local paper to the effect that I wanted people to come and see my show, and I engaged a email boy to walk about the neighbourhood, with instructions that if anybody stopped him and asked who he was he had to say that he came from the new museum. It will be seen from this that I resorted to almost every cunning device | human ingenuity could suggest. Then I I erected a barrier to keep out the rush, I painted over the door, “ See this Show and ! Die,” and opened shop, j That was at 6 a.m. Towards noon I received my first visitor. It was a policeman, who came to say the neighbours had comI plained of the Italian gentleman who was * playing the barrel organ at the door. About 3p m a brick was thrown in at the door, ' and that was the only other visitor we had I t ni d U sk. Then two little girls camein'to know if we sold tinned tacks. As the evening 'wore on the spotted baby wept with increasing frequency, and its mother decided to bye-bye. About the same time the giant 1 went out to tea and forgot to come back.' Half an hour afterwards, the check-taker passed in a family of nine, who came to see the giant and the spotted baby, and on being informed that the show was just dosing, the parents cheerfully announced their intention to go outside and break some of the windows.1 have come to the conclusion that museum* are a mistake. Virtue may be its own reward, but it certainly isn’t anybody else’s; i an d the man who endeavours by his own enterprise to educate the public mind 10 appreciate the wonders of nature will simply get left every time. < 1 It costs nearly five shillings 10 ron a ; London and North-Western Railway wpfMt i train one mil*