Dealings with the dead - 1856

Project Gutenburg

"Throw aside whatever I send you, if you do not like it, as we throw aside the old bones, when making a new grave; and preserve only what you think of any value—with a slight difference—you will publish it, and we shouldn’t. I was so fond of using the thing, which I have now in my hand, when a boy, that my father thought I should never succeed with the mattock and spade—he often shook his head, and said I should never make a sexton. He was mistaken. He was a shrewd old man, and I got many a valuable hint from him. “Abner,” said he to me one day, when he saw me bowing, very obsequiously, to a very old lady, “don’t do so, Abner; old folks are never pleased with such attentions, from people of your profession. They consider all personal approaches, from one of your fraternity, as wholly premature. It brings up unpleasant anticipations.” Father was right; and, when I meet a very old, or feeble, or nervous gentleman, or lady, I always walk fast, and look the other way.

Sextons have greatly improved within the last half century. In old times, they kept up too close an intimacy with young surgeons; and, to keep up their spirits, in cold vaults, they formed too close an alliance with certain evil spirits, such as gin, rum, and brandy. We have greatly improved, as a class, and are destined, I trust, to still greater elevation. A few of us are thinking of getting incorporated. I have read—I read a great deal—I have carried a book, of some sort, in my pocket for fifty years—no profession loses so much time, in mere waiting, as ours—I have read, that the barbers and surgeons of London were incorporated, as one company, in the time of Henry VIII. There is certainly a much closer relation, between the surgeons and sextons, than between the barbers and surgeons, since we put the finishing hand to their work. And as every body is getting incorporated now-a-days, I see no good reason against our being incorporated, as a society of sextons and surgeons. And then our toils and vexations would, in some measure, be solaced, by pleasant meetings and convivial suppers, at which the surgeons would cut up roast turkeys, and the sextons might bury their sorrows. When sextons have no particular digging to do, out of doors, it seems well enough for them to dig in their closets. There is a great amount of information to be gained from books, particularly adapted to their profession, some of which is practical, and some of which, though not of that description, is of a much more profitable character than police reports of rapes and murders, or the histories of family quarrels, or interminable rumors of battles and bloodshed. There is a learned blacksmith; who knows but there may spring up a learned sexton, some of these days.

The dealings with the dead, since the world began, furnish matter for curious speculation. What has seemed meet and right, in one age or nation, has appeared absurd and even monstrous in another. It is also interesting to contemplate the many strange dispositions, which certain individuals have directed to be made, in regard to their poor remains. Men, who seem not to have paid much attention to their souls, have provided, in the most careful and curious manner, for the preservation of their miserable carcasses. It may also furnish matter for legitimate inquiry, how far it may be wise, and prudent, and in good taste, to carry our love of finery into the place, appropriated for all living. Aristocracy among the dead! What a thought. Sumptuary considerations are here involved. The rivalry of the tomb! The pride—not of life—but of death! How frequently have I seen, especially among the Irish, the practice of a species of pious fraud upon the baker and the milk man, whose bills were never to be paid, while all the scrapings of the defunct were bestowed upon the “birril!” The principle is one and the same, when men, in higher walks, put costly monuments over the ashes of their dead, and their effects into the hands of assignees. And then the pageantry and grandiloquence of the epitaph! In the course of fifty years, what outrageous lies I have seen, done in marble! Perhaps I may say something of these matters—perhaps not."

Fakenham Parish Church




Fakenham Parish Cemetery

© Godric Godricson

The dismal surroundings of the cemetery at Fakenham is typical of much of Anglican cemeteries. The land has been scraped clean of monuments with a small fraction being left to one side as a slight recollection of what was originally there. Oh dear!  I didn't spend much time in the cemetery because of a bunch of rather menacing people lounging in what has become a sad part of the town scape in Fakenham.

To the cemetery!

© Godric Godricson

The sign to the cemetery is peeling and tired and says something about how the Anglican Authorities treat the idea of the faithful departed. If they give such thought to the dead how will they treat the living?

Dealings with the dead - 1856




Project Gutenburg 

Dealings with the Dead

 

"This is a very solemn service, when it is properly performed. When I was a youngster, Grossman was Sexton of Trinity Church, and Parker was Bishop. Never were two men better calculated to give the true effect to this service. The Bishop was a very tall, erect person, with a deep, sonorous voice; and, in the earth-to-earth part, Grossman had no rival. I used to think, then, it would be the height of my ambition to fill Grossman’s place, if I should live to be a man. When I was eight years old, I sometimes, though it frightened me half to death, dropped in, as an amateur, when there was a funeral at Trinity.

I am not, on common occasions, in favor of reviving the old way of performing a considerable part of the service, under the church, among the vaults. The women, and feeble, and nervous people will go down, of course; and getting to be buried becomes contagious. It does them no good, if they don’t catch their deaths. But, as things are now managed, the most solemn part of the service is made quite ridiculous. In 1796, I was at a funeral, under Trinity Church. I went below with the mourners. The body was carried into a dimly-lighted vault. I was so small and short, that I could see scarcely anything. But the deep, sepulchral voice of Mr. Parker—he was not Bishop then—filled me with a most delightful horror. I listened and shivered. At length he uttered the words, “earth to earth,” and Grossman, who did his duty, marvellously well, when he was sober, rattled on the coffin a whole[ shovelful of coarse gravel—“ashes to ashes”—another shovelful of gravel—“dust to dust”—another: it seemed as if shovel and all were cast upon the coffin lid. I never forgot it. My way home from school was through Summer Street. Returning often, in short days, after dusk, I have run, at the top of my speed, till I had gotten as far beyond Trinity, as Tommy Russell’s, opposite what now is Kingston Street.

Grantham Parish Church

A great change has taken place, since I became a sexton. I suppose that part of the service is the most solemn, where the body is committed to the ground; and it is clearly a pity, that anything should occur, to lessen the solemnity. As soon as the minister utters the words, “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God,” &c., the coffin being in the broad aisle, the sexton, now-a-days, steps up to the right of it, and makes ready by stooping down, and picking up a little sand, out of a box or saucer—a few more words, and he takes aim—“earth to earth,” and he fires an insignificant portion of it on to the coffin—“ashes to ashes,” and he fires another volley—“dust to dust,” and he throws the balance, commonly wiping his hand on his sleeve. There is something, insufferably awkward, in the performance. I heard a young sexton say, last week, he had rather bury half the congregation, than go through this comic part. There is some grace, in the action of a farmer, sowing barley; but there is a feeling of embarrassment, in this miserable illustration of casting in the clods upon the dead, which characterizes the performance. The sexton commonly tosses the sand on the coffin, turning his head the other way, and rather downward, as if he were sensible, that he was performing an awkward ceremony. For myself, I am about retiring, and it is of little moment to me. But I hope something better will be thought of. What would poor old Grossman say!"

Parish Coffin - Easingwold

PARISH COFFIN, EASINGWOLD CHURCH.

Project Gutenburg : Title: Old Church Lore

Author: William Andrews

Coffin - Craan

"In Ireland, there was a curious custom of burying the dead without coffins. “Until about the year 1818,” says a correspondent of Notes and Queries, Second Series, vol. i., “certain families, named Tracey, Doyle, and Daly, of the townland of Craan, near Enniscorthy, in the barony of Scarawalsh, in the county of Wexford, were in the habit of burying their dead uncoffined, in the graveyard attached to the Augustinian Abbey of Saint John. The bodies were brought to the place of sepulture in open coffins, with their faces uncovered. The graves were made six or more feet deep, and lined with bright green turf from the banks of the river Slaney. In these green chambers, were strewn moss, dry grass, and flowers, and a pillow of the same supported the head of the corpse when it was laid in its last earthly bed.”

Project Gutenburg : Title: Old Church Lore

Author: William Andrews