GRAVESTONE HUMOUR.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1315, 13 May 1897, Page 12

GRAVESTONE HUMOUR.

A curious application has been dealt with by an English provincial burial board. A parishioner, whose wife had recently been buri*d in the cemetery, asked permission to •rect a headstone with an inscription upon it, partly in reference to his departed spouse and partly anticipating his own demise. The full legend was to run thus: — This is in memory of , wife of ——, who died 31st November, 1895, aged 65 years. W«#p not for me, husband dear, I am not dead, but sleepeth here ; Your loss is great, but must remain Till we in Heaven do meet again. ; - Also in memory of , husband of the ab®ve, who died . fi hose words above are very true, My loos was great when I lost you ; I have lingered on in sorrow and pain, But I hope in Heaven to meet again. Eventually the first section of the inscription was sanctioned, but it was decided that pending the author’s death, the second portion could not be allowed. The clerk of the board remarked that the incident reminded him of a churchyard stone on which a wife implored her husband to “ Prepare to die „ and follow me,” under which some one wrote : “ To follow you I’m not content, Until I know which way you went.”

It has since been pointed out that “ the epitahs ” have been sadly mangled. A Tears ago, in an old volume of Chambers' Journal, appeared what must have been the original lines. The wife speaks first:— “ Grieve not for me, my husband dear, I am not dead, but sleeping here ; Wait patiently, prepare to die, And in good time you'll com 3 t 0,1.” la spile of the pathos of that lastcouplet the husband married again, u hereupon a local wag added the following lines, which shew that in tho parish, wherever it was, there was no “committee) for the execution of tho Burial Acts,” as at East Grin stead: “ I am not grieved, my dearest life, Bleep on ! I’ve got another wife, And so I cannot cmno to thee, For I must go and live with she.”