BURIAL ON "LAY-BY"

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 March 1930, Page 2

BURIAL ON "LAY-BY "

UNDERTAKERS LOSE £BO,OOO.

“This business of burying people has its worries,” the manager of a Sydney firm of funeral directors confided recently in the “Sunday Pictorial News.” “I estimate that in New South. Wales alone we undertakers have on our books over £BO,OOO of bad debts. “The wealthy people are usually the worst payers. Somehow, the poorer classes are more conscientious about their dead, and if they cannot pay a lump sum, they adopt the “time payment” system. “A big business man, who died recently, left nothing. His widow (never dreaming of this) ordered a big funeral and he was buried with pomp and ceremony. Now she is penniless and we have another bad debt!

“Some schemes that people have used to escape paying for funerals are astonishingly ingenious and there are several loopholes in the law which encourage anyone into taking down the undertaker.

“Many people are so afraid of being buried as paupers that they pay for their funerals on the ‘lay-by.’ “One young chap, with every prospect, of living another 50 years, has bought his grave and coffin, and designed his own headstone. Now all that remains to be done is to engrave on it the date of his death!

“Flappers make inquiries about the cost of coffins and graves One Petersham miss is saving up for e most expensive funeral!

“Some (mostly old folks) argue, ‘Why put aside money for my funeral, when I could Spend it on clothes and talkie tickets. I won’t care who has to pay for my funeral when I’m dead. I know I won’t be left just lying around!’ ”