FLOWERS AT FUNERALS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 810, 2 November 1929, Page 30

FLOWERS AT FUNERALS

DUTCH TO ISSUE BAN Because £3,000 worth of flowers were used for a single funeral in Holland. Dutch philanthropists have decided to abolish flower gifts for the dead, says a United States exchange. “To waste hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for ostentatious flower gifts, which often are no expressions of mourning, but of snobbery, means an injustice to poor families that might benefit from the money,” the committee declares. “Sweden organised a ‘flower fund.’ which seems to 11s a good way out,” the Dutch committee explains. “When the Swedes noticed that they spent something like £2.000,000 a year for flower gifts and wreaths, they decided to ask that everyone should donate the money he would spend for flowers to the flower fund. Instead of flowers, this fund would send a little album to the family the flowers were meant for. explaining which sum had been contributed to the fund. The fund goes to a home for aged persons.

“In Switzerland people add to the announcement of a death ’Please think of ,' ami then follows the name of some hospital. This means that friends are asked to send money to the hospital instead of flowers for the grave.” The Dutch committee has decided to adopt the Swedish system, despite some energetic protest on the part of flower shops.