STRANGE FUNERALS

Evening Star, Issue 22524, 17 December 1936, Page 6

STRANGE FUNERALS

CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN TALES GRAVEDIGGER WHO SLEPT. The Tennant Creek funeral party which came to bury Jim Carroll, one of Australia’s best-known prospectors, found the gravedigger asleep under _ a tree and had to turn to under a blistering sun and prepare the grave themselves, writes a Sydney correspondent. Four bottles of beer . and 30s had been given to the gravedigger in advance; but the heat and the grief at the loss of his pal—he had tramped for years ' with Carroll —had been too much for him. . , , , When the cortege arrived four hours later he ivas still unconscious to his troubles and the grave had barely been started. The mourners deemed it better to let him sleep on. In the party were a Roman Catholic priest, a IVlethodist minister, several Government officials, and a band of returned soldiers. They had subscribed to the gravedigger’s fee. Everyone had a turn with the shovel, and in half an hour the service was begun. . This story will go down with many another strange story of funerals in Central Australia. One is told ot a publican who died in his pyjamas. After the service the party adjourned to wash away its sorrows but .found kev of the bar had been buried in a pyjama pocket. The grave was reopened, the key obtained, and matters were set right. An old prospector now comfortably settled in Adelaide figures in the tale told about Paddy O’Sullivan, who sat behind a shed on a racecourse on a very hot day and quietly passed away. It was agreed to bury him straight away The race meeting was suspended a while, a grave was prepared, and with the body carried on several mulga logs the procession got under way. One vowed he had seen 0 Sullivan move and the procession was baited The old prospector marched to 0 Sullivans head and pulled a cork with a loud pop from a bottle. O’Sullivan did not stir. Everybody was satisfied, and the burial went on without furtbei interruption.