VALUABLE BODIES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2458, 11 May 1915, Page 7

VALUABLE BODIES

INSURING THE SAFETY OF THE DEAD.The Chinese evidently set a high value upon themselvos, for if a dead Chinese is worth £200, what would be tho value of a living ono? Many wealthy men insure their lives for many thousands of pounds, but it is not a common custom to insure the safety of a corpse. A local insurance company this week issued, three policies each for £200 on the risk that the bodies of Young Wong, Young Chung, and Young King, the three Chinese who were asphyxiated recently, would be safely landed at Hong-Kong. The coffins containing the bodies will be first shipped to Sydney by the Ulimaroa, and from there transhipped to the Japanese mail steamer Niko Maru. The insurances were effected by the local Chinese Association, and the total cost of landing the bodies in Hong-Kong will amount to over £100. The, three men were natives of Gow Fong, in the Province of Canton, and their remains will eventually find a resting-place there among those of their ancestors, for the veneration of ancestors is a strong feature in Chinese national ideals; in fact it is almost a form of religion. A Chinese always hopes to sleep the last long sleep on his jiative soil, aiid he usually strives to savo enough money to carry his bones back to, China from any land whore he may have made a temporary home.