THE JESTING EPITAPH

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1929, Page 9

THE JESTING EPITAPH

HUMOUR ON TOMBSTONES New England cemeteries are apparently not in danger of losing their reputation for containing occasional humour on grave subjects. Dr. William P. Rothwell, a physician of Pawtucket, recently chose “This is on me” for his epitaph, in remembrance of his fond: ness of playing the host to his friends. When he is* gone he says he desires no mourning among his friends, and he thinks the familiar words that he has had carved on a boulder will bring laughter instead of sorrow when they read them. The doctor’s point of view has many historic precedents, not only in New England but in other parts of the country, says the New York “Times.” There is, for instance, this blithely terse inscription in an Indiana graveyard: ~ Here lies I Killed by a sky Rocket in my eye. And in a somewhat more admonitory vein is this verse from Charleston: Reader, I’ve left this world, in which I had a world to do; . Sweating and fretting to get rich; Just such a fool as you. And this one from a tombstone in New Jersey: Reader, pass on! Don’t, waste your time" On bad biography and little rhyme; For what I am this crumbling clay insures, And what I was is no affair of yours. That the friends who are to read the inscriptions may sometimes themselves choose to make them not too serious reading has often been demonstrated. For the verity of the following, John R. Kippax, a Chicago authority who made the collection, must be held responsible. He does not state the whereabouts of this epitaph:

Here lies the body of Deacon Speer, v Whose mouth did reach from ear to ear. Stranger tread lightly o’er the sod For if he yapes your gone—by cod. But Mr. Kippax asserts that the following is actually to be found in Connecticut —it is also diaconal: Here lies cut down like unripe fruit The wife of Deacon Amos Shute; She died of drinking too much coffee, Anny Dominy Eighteen forty. Some of these inscriptions have become famous. The Ohio tombstone that bears the epitaph of Solomon Pease ,for instance, has been quoted by more persons than have seen it. The lines are: Under this sod And under* these trees Lieth the body of Solomon Pease. He’s not in this hole But only his pod; He shelled out his soul 1 And went up to his God. And the other epitaph of the Colonial locksmith is scarcely less famous; A zealous Locksmith died of late, And did arrive at Heaven’s gate; He stood without and would not knock Because he meant to pick the lock. Tho best-known epitaph on a dentist is more brief: “He is filling his last cavity,” it announces tersely. And the inscription for a Coroner who hanged himself is a masterpiece of condensation: “He lived and died by suicide.” One on a lawyer’s grave in Massachusetts states;

Here lie lies as he always did. Stranger be civil —the rest God knows, So does the Devil. One that is said to have been written for a Long Island carpenter reads: No wonder he sawed short life’s span For long he was a (n)ailing man. In Schenectady, N.Y., there is this revealing bit of biography: He got a fish-bone in his throat And then he sang an angel note. And this one is ascribed to Ohio: Neuralgia worked on Mrs Jones Till ’neath the sod it laid her. She was a worthy Methodist, And served as a crusader. Her obseques were held at two, With plenty of good carriages. Death is the common lot of all And comes as oft as marriages. It is a tombstone in St. Mary’s churchyard, Burlington, N.J., according to Kippax, that contains the following:

Here lies the body of Mary Ann Lowdeer, She burst while drinking a seidlitz powder. Called from this world to her heavenly rest, She should have waited till it effervesced. The inscription over the grave of a famous old negro retainer who lived in Savannah before the Civil War, according to unimpeachable authority, reads: Here lies old Rastus Somminy Died a-eating hominy. In ’59 anno domini. Entering the realms of literature, humorous epitaphs are as numerous as they are well known. Ambrose Bierce’s Premature Epitaphs are still too. libellous to quote. The poet who wrote, Here lies,, my wife; here let her lie; Now she’s at rest—and so am I. is well known. Hilare Belloc’s on himself. When I am gone, may only this be said— His sins were scarlet but his books were read, has been widely quoted. And Gay’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, bearing the couplet he wrote, epitomises the spirit of all humorous epitaphs: Life is a jest and all things show it. I thought so once and now I know it.