REMARKABLE FUNERAL.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 31433, 13 April 1923, Page 7

REMARKABLE FUNERAL.

ESSEN TRACEDY. NATION A L DEMONSTRATION. Electric Telegraph—Press Association Copyright. (Australian-N.Z. Cable Association. - ) (Received this diary, at 10.20 a.m.) Essen, April 11. The funeral of seven workmen and five apprentices was the occasion of an astonishing national demonstration . The funeral bells began to toll throughout Germany at nine o’clock in the morning. Floral tributes, including those from the German and Prussian Governments, and one from the Communists of France, numbered many hundreds. In Essen itself, the streets were thronged at daybreak by people dressed in deep mourning, many carrying flowers, making for Altendo Ferstraisse, which cuts ‘ through Krupps’ works, and the scene of the tragedy. Here, 60,000 of Krupps’ workers assembled and a quarter million of others lined the streets to watch the passaj|3» of the coffins, which had been guarded at night by ten miners in the uniform of the Miners’ Guild, each carrying a miner’s lamp lighted, the rest of Krupps’ employees marching in two columns four deep, on either side of the 'road, and preceded the coffins to the cemetery, four miles from towar. Wh-en the van reached the cemetery gates, the end of the procession was still at Krupps’ works. .' At the graveside, the speaker for the Workers’ Council declared that Krupps’ workers were determined not to work under foreign bayonets. After other orations, the twelve | coffins were lowered into the graves, j During the rest of the day every I -hop in Essen was shut, and the blinds of ail the houses drawn. Throughout the funeral ceremonies not a single French or Belgian soldier was to be seen, the military authorities having confined all to bar racks.