HATS ON AT FUNERALS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 31, 30 July 1892, Page 769

HATS ON AT FUNERALS.

recommended by two boards of health on ■SANITARY GROUNDS.

As is frequently the ease, the enterprising Americans are those who are making the first real efforts to effect what public opinion has long pronounced a much-needed reform. The retaining of hats on the part of the male attendants at a funeral has long been considered extremely advisable. Lately in this colony, during the prevalence of influenza, more than one funeral has followed from the foolish custom of leaving a church or chape), heated by the piesence of a large number of spectators, and standing bare headed in the raw air exposed to the cold wind. The following paragraph is worth reading : * Since the prevalence of la grippe the risk of out-of-door exposure has multiplied. Many cases of illness and not a few deaths have been noted from this cause. The most common occasions of danger have been during attendance on funerals, either as pall-bearers or mourners. In well-conducted funerals undertakers nowadays frequently furnish skullcaps to be worn by pall bearers. . . . All reflecting persons will agree that it requires a stretch of the imagination to detect the difference in the effect between the wearing of an ordinary hat and the wearing of a skull-cap on such occasions. Baring the head at funerals is a mere convention that serves no useful ceremonious purpose. Wearing a skull-cap is no compromise ;itis a surrender. The custom of taking off the hat in wet or cold or stormy weather while the remains are carried from the home to the hearse, or from the hearse to the chapel or lodgeroom, and again when the lasfsad rites are performed at the grave, is fraught with danger. Ten, fifteen, and twenty minutes are not infrequently consumed, during which pall-bearers and mourners remain uncovered while a chill wind laden with damp diminishes the vital resistance of the weak and lays the foundation for a decline.

* The intelligent and masterful influence of the ministry and chief officers of lodges and societies having the burial in charge may be exercised in the beneficent advice to remain covered, and avoid discomfort and danger. This can be done with neither injury nor disrespect to the dead, but with great kindness and benefit to the living—speaking with authority, and themselves setting the example by remaining covered, they administer comfort, relief and protection, and certainly less apprehension for the results of the necessary exposure incidental to the interment. . . . That the efforts to prevent disease shall at least equal, if it does not exceed the art of cure, is one of the possible triumphs of modern civilization.’ Two American Boards of Health have agreed to recommend that * the custom of removing hats at funerals during the service at the grave be abolished in the interest of health.’ When shall we see this extremely sensible and wise plan not only recommended, but adopted in New Zealand. Who will be the first to make a request that this shall be added to his notice of death in the papers : ‘By special request of deceased, hats will not be removed during the funeral except for the service in church.’ Also, we might all stipulate that very slight, if any, mourning should be worn when our loved ones have to carry us to the grave.