PLANT HER DEEP.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 584, 3 May 1876, Page 3

PLANT HER DEEP.

They were two very enthusiastic undertakers in Newcastle, New South Wales. They are always on the look out for business, and always try to get ahead of each other. The wife of a prominent citizen was known to be quite ill some time ago, and both undertakers made up their minds to provide the funeral if she should die. On Thursday night the husband dropped the paregoric bottle on the floor, and scared the invalid so that she gave a little scream. The next instant the family heard somebody staggering up stairs, knocking the paper off the wall with some kind of an implement. It was Jones, the undertaker, bringing up one of his patent heremetically sealed coffins. He had been waiting on the front step, and hearing the scream, concluded the end had come, and rushed in all ready. He dashed up the stairs as the husband opened the door, set the coffin end up on the carpet, and exclaimed, eagerly, “Gimme the first chance ! Bury her for eight pounds, with silver trimmings !” Before the indignant man had time to reply, a noise was heard at the attic. Presently Brown, the other undertaker, appeared on the third storey landing, and heaving one of his “ incorrodorable caskets” down the stairs, he slid down the bannister suddenly, and screamed, “Don’t do it; I’ll plant her for seven pounds ten; five off for cash, put a raongram on the casket, and throw in a tombstone.” Brown had been watching Jones, it seems, from the roof of the house next door, and would have beaten him, but the trap door stuck. They were led away by a policeman, but before they reached the corner of the street, Jones had secured a contract for burying that policeman’s mother-in-law, when she died. The policeman was not particular about details. “ Only let it be deep,” he said, “ with something solid on the top to hold her down.”