EMPTY CARRIAGES AT FUNERALS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2702, 16 November 1881, Page 3

EMPTY CARRIAGES AT FUNERALS.

A funeral passed us yesterday, and judging by the number of close &nd empty carriages that followed, it was that of a person of distinction. But we could not but think what an utter absurdity was this custom of expressing our respect and grief at onco vicarously and vehieularly. We mourn A’s death and, to show it to the world, get out our brougham and send it with its blinds down, through streets at the tail of A’s coffin. Could anything be more rediculous ? Some of us do not possess carriages, and yet we may respect and regret the late lamented A. as much as our wealthier neighbors. Are we, therefore to remain unrepresented at his funeral? Why, surely consistency demands that we should send—well, let us say our best umbrella, carefully rolled up and encased and carried by onr maid-of-all-work, or our “ buttons,” as the case may be. Or if it were wet on the day of the funeral, and we had only one umbrella, we' might, with equal good taste and feeling, club together,. a score or two of us, and send an empty omnibus, say, or, if it be possible, a tram-car, to swell the mourners’ train. Or again, why should we not send on a truck the armchair we usually occupy ? Any of these ways of showing respect seem to us to be quite as seemly as that of sending the empty carriage, though the latter perhaps is a little more ostentatious than the others. Bat at that rate we shall soon expect to see a big funeral train swelled by a number of four-in-hands. There must surely be more real regret in a drag than in a brougham ! “ Figaro.”