RIVAL UNDERTAKERS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9425, 22 April 1909, Page 7

RIVAL UNDERTAKERS.

“Now is the time to die; fine chance for a funeral dirt cheap. ” This is the appeal which was placarded all over Jersey Oity one day recently in support of an effort made by free and independent undertakers to raid the trade of what is called the “Burial Trust” (reports the New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). According to the free-and-independents, the TMrnst has been charging extortionate prices, and even then in many oases “neglected to pad the ontside box. ” “How much,” I asked one of the raiders, “should be charged for the burial of the average working man?” He responded enthusiastically. “For. about £l6 one can get as fine a funeral as any man could wish —black horses, waving plumes, and union drivers,” while for £2O he undertook to provide not only a funeral, what he called “a cute little grave, with luxurious accessories and free death notices in two prominent papers.” He attacked the Burial Trust as “grafters unworthy of the responsibilities of embalming, burying and tombstoning.” He painted so alluring a picture of burial by the free-and-independents, particularly emphasising that they padded the “ontside box,” that one began to question the advantages of life when to die in Jersey Oity was so cheap and the-accessories of death so luxurious.