THE FUNERAL.
‘Worldly people,’ wrote one of our greatest novelists, ‘never look so
worldly as at a funeral.’ The truth of this was very apparent at the
funeral of the deceased Baronet. There was the usual parade of outward
grief at the churchyard, and in the town all the blinds were drawn down
and the shops shut—with the exception of those set apart for the sale of
beer and wine and spirits, which were rather better patronized than
usual. It is said grief makes men thirsty. That certainly was the case
at Sloville, for the usual topers of the place had been increased in
number by the addition of numerous thirsty souls from all the adjacent
country, drawn together not so much by grief as by a pardonable
curiosity.
Heavily tolled the bell of the old-fashioned church, in the gloomy vaults
of which slept the family ancestors, whose varied virtues were recorded
in marble in all parts of the building, and whose rotting carcases
poisoned the atmosphere of the place, and had done so for many
generations.
When are we going to reform this and to cremate our dead, so that we may
go to church in safety and with no fear of detriment to our physical
well-being? The ancients burnt their dead. Is there any earthly reason
why we moderns should not do the same? I know none, except a stupid
prejudice unworthy of a generation that loves to think itself
enlightened, and that flatters itself it is wiser than any that has gone
before. If it is to be talked of after death, surely the urn can be as
fitting a remembrance of the departed as the costly and cumbrous marble
monument, with its deception and untruth. ‘Five languages,’ writes Sir
Thomas Brown, of Norwich, ‘secured not the epitaph of Gordianus. The man
of God lives longer without a tomb than any by one visibly interred by
angels, and adjudged to obscurity, though not without some marks
directing human decency. Enoch and Elias, without either tomb or burial,
in an anomalous state of being, are the great examples of perpetuity in
their long and living memory, in strict account being still on this side
death and having a late part yet to act upon the stage of earth.’ In
vain is all earthly vanity, but there is no vanity so vain as that
connected with the grave. ‘Yet man is a noble animal,’ as the same
writer remarks, ‘splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave!’
And thus it was at the funeral of the deceased Baronet. All the clergy
round had come to do him honour, and all the county families had come to
put in an appearance—or, at any rate, sent their empty carriages to
follow in the procession, which is supposed to be the same as attending
one’s self. A fashionable undertaker from town had been retained for the
occasion, and never did men wear so mournful an expression as he and his
many men. I had almost written ‘merry’ men, for none were merrier when
the dismal farce was over and they were back to town—refreshed by
stimulants, with which they had been plentifully supplied.
There was a great crowd in the church—a great crowd in the churchyard,
and a great crowd all the way from the Hall. The heir, the deceased’s
brother, naturally came in for a good deal of criticism, and he was quite
equal to the occasion—apparently mourning for the deceased as if he had
loved him as much as everyone was aware he had done the reverse.
Relatives from all parts were there, hoping against hope that they might
find their names put down for something in the will. The tenantry made a
decent show, for to many of them the deceased was a man after their own
hearts—fond of sport, of racing, of good cheer, of fast living. All the
world loves a gay spendthrift more than a sober and careful man who tries
to live within his means and to save a little money. The enlightened
British workman has, as a rule, an intense hatred for the capitalist, who
is, after all, his best friend.
The peasantry were there in great force, glad to have a show of any kind
to relieve the dull monotony of their lives—though feeling that it would
make little difference to them who reigned at the Hall, and expecting
little: as it had gone forth that the new Baronet was somewhat of a
skinflint, and that little was to be expected from the mother and
daughters who were in future to take up their residence at the old Hall.
It is needless to add that the tradesmen of the town were present in
great numbers. They knew on which side their bread was buttered.
Tradesmen generally do. At any rate there was show enough and funereal
pomp to give occasion for the county paper of the following Saturday to
devote considerable space to the affair, which—so the reporter wrote,
with a touch of imagination which did him credit—had saddened the county
and made everyone deplore the sudden and untimely decease of one of its
most distinguished men.
The deceased Baronet had been the great man of the district—a leading
magistrate, with power to ameliorate the condition of the poor—a power
that he had never used. The workhouse was old and unhealthy, yet he had
opposed every effort to build a better one; the relieving-officers were
drunkards, and generally unable to keep their accounts correctly. The
selection of such officers was, in fact, a job in order to make provision
for some aged, feeble, drunken bankrupt, a boon companion of the farmers;
nor were the medical officers much better. The outdoor paupers were
victims of the grossest abuses. The aged were set to eke out their
miserable existence by breaking stones on the road, and thus these poor
creatures, half-clad, ill-fed, and suffering from rheumatism, had to work
on the bleak roadside, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, till
they ceased to be a parochial charge at all; and, as a rule, their homes
were unfit for human habitation. The vagrants suffered from the grossest
ill-usage. One quarter of the workhouse, ill or scarcely provided with
bedding accommodation, was appropriated to a class consisting of honest
seekers for work, tramps, vagabonds, and thieves of all ages, huddled
indiscriminately together, using or listening to the vilest language,
initiated in the mysteries of vice and crime, quarrelling and fighting.
There were no vagrant wards, and any attempt to introduce them was
strenuously resisted, and thus, in spite of the Reformed Poor Law, as it
was called, the state of the poor grew more wretched every day.
Sir Watkin knew all this. A word from him would have inaugurated a
better state of things, but he never spoke that word. He was far too
busy in his pursuit of pleasure to think of the poor on his estate, or to
plead their cause, and the guardians were content to let things slide.
Dr. Chalmers maintained that the one main drawback to the effectual
working of the new Poor Law would be the defective attendance at the
boards of the landlords, and, as far as Sloville was concerned, the
doctor was right. Had the deceased Baronet discharged the duties of his
position, and concerned himself about the welfare of the poor, he might
have been a blessing to the district. As it was, he was very much the
reverse. In his time, as in that of the old Hebrew Psalmist, it might
truly be said: ‘The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.’
A few days and the astonishment of the town was over, and the sun was
gay, and the earth as fair as ever. Nature takes no heed of death; it
keeps on all the same its eternal way. The common people had their talk
of old scandals, and the lodge-keeper became quite an oracle as he hinted
at the appearance of an old woman at the gate, and expressed his wonder
at what had become of her. He went so far as to hint at the possession
of mysterious knowledge, of which the presumptive heir would be glad to
avail himself; but gradually even that form of mild excitement passed
away. The public soon got over the event, as it generally does.
In the gay world, of which Sir Watkin had been a leading figure so
recently, things went on much as usual. The old captain in the club, it
is true, felt the loss of a man younger than himself, and on whom he had,
to a certain extent, leaned. The manager of the Diamond Theatre was
inconsolable, as his bills were many in the hands of the Jews, and he
looked to the Baronet to take them up as they fell due. A little regret
and wonder was expressed that the deceased Baronet did not cut up quite
so well as was expected. Well, of course, he was a gentleman, and you
can’t expect a gentleman to be a good man of business. But a good many
who lost by the deceased were not quite so easily consoled. It is
pleasant to be able to pay twenty shillings in the pound, but that is not
the whole duty of man, nevertheless. If Shakespeare had been unfortunate
in business, if Milton had had to make an arrangement with his creditors,
we should have thought just as well of them; nor does one think a penny
the worse of De Foe, that he was in pecuniary difficulties, or of Dick
Steele that he could not make both ends meet, or of Goldsmith that he
left two thousand pounds of debt behind him. In the case of Sir Watkin
Strahan the estate was strictly settled, and only his debts of honour got
paid. As it was, there was little left for the new Baronet to start
with.
And this state of things is the consequence of the law of primogeniture,
says the ignorant reformer. It is not so. Our laws of settlement are to
be blamed as unfair and unjust. The main causes of agricultural
depression, and of continued wrongdoing on the part of landed
proprietors, are the laws which allow the owners to make deeds and wills
which for many years, and often long after the owners’ deaths, prevent
the land from being sold, or the estate from being divided, no matter how
expedient it may be that it should he sold, or no matter how foolish or
extravagant the owner may be. Mr. Kay illustrates this in a case in
which he had acted as trustee. This estate, about fifty or sixty years
ago, came into the hands of a young nobleman, whom he calls Lord A., when
he was twenty-one. He married when he was twenty-two, and the
marriage-deed gave him only a life interest in the estate, and settled
the property on his children. He had one child, and as soon as that
child was twenty-one another deed was made, giving that child only a life
interest in the estate, and settling it after his death on the children
he might leave in succession. Lord A. was an extravagant and reckless
man. He hunted the county; he kept open house; he lived as if his estate
were ten times as great as it really was. He gambled and lost heavily.
He raised money on his life interest. He finally fled from England
deeply in debt, and lived abroad. The remainder of the life interest was
sold to a Jew, who knew that he would lose all when Lord A. died, and
found his only profit in thinning the woods. That state of things lasted
forty years. The farmers had no leases or any security for expenditure.
The Jew would not spend a penny, nor would the gentleman who took the
mansion, because he could not tell when he might be turned out; and the
tenantry were prevented from doing fairly to the land or to themselves.
There was no one to support the schools or the church, or to look after
the labourers on the estate. The farm-buildings fell into decay; the
land was not properly drained or cultivated; the plantations were
injured, and the mansion was dilapidated. And all this vast extent of
mischief was the result of the deeds which the law had allowed the lord
and his heir to execute. Nor are such cases isolated. Nor is it
possible to over-estimate the wretchedness and poverty they create in
rural England. Perhaps, in time, Englishmen will demand the abolition of
laws which entail such bitter wrong on the community at large.