Part 9

What is the cost of porters, the men who bear staves covered with black?—The cost of the mutes varies from 18_s._ to 30_s._ In some cases of respectable persons, where silk scarfs or fittings, including hat-bands and gloves, are used, 5_l._ 5_s._ is charged to families for those fittings. To parties in moderate circumstances, two guineas would be charged for the fittings and the pay.

What is the charge for the person who walks with a scarf?—The usual charge to a respectable family would be a guinea, besides fittings, scarfs, gloves, and hat-bands, which would altogether amount to about two guineas and a half for this man.

What is the charge for the plume of feathers borne on the head before the hearse?—The charge for the feathers would be about two guineas; then there is the man’s gloves, scarf, and fittings, which make it about three guineas and a-half.

What is the charge per man bearing batons?—The charge, including silk fittings, will be about 22_s._ each man.

What is the charge for each man bearing a wand?—About the same price.

How many men of this description would be required for what is deemed a respectable funeral?—About twenty men; for if the coffin be a leaden one it would require about eight men to bear it.

What other charges are there of the same kind?—There are velvets attached to the hearse, including feathers, and feathers to the horses, which makes from ten to fifteen guineas more.

What is charged for the pall?—From one to four guineas would be charged for the use of the pall.

What is it usual to give to the clergyman?—A silk scarf of three yards and a half, a silk hatband, and black kid gloves.

What may be the expense of this?—About two guineas to the parties.

Is anything usually given to the clerk?—Yes, the same as to the minister.

Is anything given to the sexton?—Yes, they do in respectable families, or rather the undertaker does so, for his own gain. The cost of the whole,—minister, sexton, and undertaker, will be about seven guineas to a respectable family, but it is usual to compound the matter by giving them money; I generally give the minister 18_s._, and the clerk 15_s._, and the sexton, perhaps, 15_s._

Is such an array as that described adopted in the case of the funerals of tradesmen as well as of other classes?—They have frequently the same number of men.

A clergyman’s widow, who has solicited aid for her sons, whom she has found it difficult to educate, states that the expenses of her husband’s funeral were upwards of 110_l._ On being asked how she could incur such an expense, she states that she considered it her duty to have a respectable funeral, and ordered the undertaker to provide what was respectable; that she knew not what she ordered in that condition, and merely gave general orders. Now is not this a frequent case, and is not the undertaker’s usual interpretation of respectability that which is expensive, the parties knowing little about it?—Yes, that is frequently so.

In the case of funerals of persons of moderate respectability costing, say about 60_l._, how many of such men as those described would there be attending it?—About fourteen.

For a curate, or person of that condition, would there be that number and array?—Yes.

What would be the expense of the funeral of a person of the condition of an attorney?—From 60_l._ to 100_l._; but this would not include the expense of tomb or monument, or burial-fees.

If a person of such a condition were buried, would it be of about twenty attendants, with such an array as that described?—Yes; for such a person the cost would be about 100 guineas, exclusive of the burial-fees.

There would then be the same number of attendants as those mentioned, about twenty men?—Yes, about twenty men.

The funeral being ordered of an upholsterer, is it not usually provided by an undertaker?—Yes.

In how many cases of funerals will there be “the second profit?”—In nearly two-thirds of the cases of burial in the upper classes.

Is the same observation applicable to the funerals amongst the middle classes?—Yes; I think in nearly the same proportion.

How much of the profit will be the profit of the upholsterer?—Nearly half: if the funeral costs 50_l._ to the upholsterer from the undertaker, it will cost about 100_l._ from the undertaker to the family.

Is there much credit given in the business to respectable families?—Not much; for as soon as letters of administration are taken out the funeral expenses are discharged.

The average expense of the funeral of an adult of the labouring class being about 4_l._, exclusive of the burial fees, and that of a child about 30_s._, what may be stated to be the ordinary expense of the funeral of a tradesman of the lowest class, as ordinarily conducted?—Of the very lowest class—of a class in condition not much beyond that of a mechanic, the funeral expenses might be from 10_l._ to 12_l._

What would be the ordinary expense for the funeral of a child of a person of this class?—The ordinary expense would be about 5_l._

What would be the ordinary expense of the funeral of a tradesman of a better class?—From 70_l._ to 100_l._

What do you consider would be a low average for the ordinary expense of the whole class of tradesmen’s funerals?—About 50_l._ would, I consider, be a low average for the whole class.

What may be considered the average of ordinary expenses of the funerals of children of the class dying below 10 years of age?—About 14_l._

Might 100_l._ be taken as the average expense of the funeral of a person of the condition of a gentleman?—No; they range from 200_l._ to 1,000_l._ I think that 150_l._ would be a low average.

What may be considered the ordinary expense of the funeral of a child of this class?—About 30_l._ would be the average.

What may be the ordinary expense of the funerals of persons of rank or title?—The expense varies from 500_l._ to 1500_l._ A large part of this expense has, however, commonly been for the removal of the remains from town to the family vault by a long cavalcade moving by very slow stages; but the conveyance by railway makes as much as 500_l._ difference in the expense of a funeral of this class.

What may be the average expense of the funeral of a child of this class?—About 50_l._

Do you believe it to be practicable, by proper regulations, greatly to reduce the existing charges of interments?—Yes; a very great reduction indeed may be made, at least 50 per cent.

May it be confidently stated that under such reductions, whatever of respectability in exterior is now attached to the trappings, or to the mode of the ceremony, might be preserved?—Oh, yes; I should say it might, and that they could scarcely fail to be increased.

§ 46. Mr. Dix, an undertaker, who inters from 800 to 1000 persons annually, of whom about 300 are of the class of independent labourers, being questioned on this topic, stated as follows:—

The lowest average expense of a poor man’s burial, from extensive evidence, is stated to be about 5_l._; but that is where it is done, as it usually is, second or third hand. I frequently perform funerals three deep: that is, I do it for one person, who does it for another who does it for the relatives of the deceased, he being the first person applied to.

The people then generally apply to the nearest person?—Yes, they do. Everybody calls himself an undertaker. The numerous men employed as bearers become undertakers, although they have never done anything until they have got the job. I have known one of these men get a new suit of clothes out of the funeral of one decent mechanic.

§ 47. The conclusions in respect to the unnecessary expense of funerals appear to be applicable, with little variation, to the most populous provincial towns. In the rural districts the expense of funerals of the class of gentry appears to be even more expensive. In most of the provincial towns the expense of the funerals of the more respectable class of tradesmen does not appear to be much less than in London. In Scotland, the expenses of the funerals of persons of the middle classes appear, from a communication from Mr. Chambers, to vary from 12_l._ to 25_l._ In Glasgow the expenses of funerals of persons of the middle class appear to vary from 12_l._ to 50_l._

§ 48. To persons of the condition of the widows of officers in the army or navy, or of the legal profession, or of persons of the rank of gentry who have but limited incomes, the expenses of the funerals often subject them to severe privations during the remainder of their lives. The widow is frequently compelled to beg pecuniary assistance for the education of her children, which the superfluous expenses of the funerals of the adult members of the family would have supplied; and these expenses are incurred often in utter disregard of express requests of the dying, that the funerals should be plain, and divested of unnecessary expense. The expenses are often incurred equally against the wishes of the survivors. The cause of this appears to be that the funeral arrangements, and the determination of what is proper, and what customs shall be maintained, fall, as shown by the evidence, to those who have a direct interest,—and when the nature of their separate establishments are considered, are commonly acting under a strong necessity,—in maintaining a system of profuse expenditure. The circumstances of the death do not admit of any effective competition or any precedent examination of the charges of different undertakers, or any comparison and consideration of their supplies; there is no time to change them for others that are less expensive, and more in conformity to the taste and circumstances of the parties. An executor who had ordered a coffin and service of the “most simple description,” conformably to the intentions of the deceased, expecting the coffin to cost not more than five pounds, having, under peculiar circumstances, occasion to call for the bill previously to the interment, found, to his surprise, that instead of five the charge for the coffin amounted to nearly twenty pounds. “What,” he says, “could be done? we could not turn the body out of the coffin: I would have paid double rather than have disturbed the peace of the house on that solemn occasion, by a dispute, or by an objection either to that charge, or to the disgusting frippery with which those who attended the dead were covered against their tastes.” The survivors, however, are seldom in a state to perform any office of every-day life; and they are at the mercy of the first comer. The supplies of the funeral goods and services, are, therefore, a multiform monopoly, not apparently on the parts of the chief undertakers, or original and real preparers of the funeral materials and services, but of second or third parties living in the immediate neighbourhood,—persons who assume the business of an undertaker, and who obtain the first orders. The reason why the charges are seldom or ever disputed after interment is that, however severe or extortionate they may be, it would be more severe for the widow, or survivor, or friends, to scrutinise the items, or resist the payment of the total amount. Nor can it be expected of any individual to break through such customs, however generally they may be disliked. All isolated efforts to simplify the supplies and use of the goods and _materiel_,—all objections to the demands for them are exposed to the calumny that proper respect to the deceased is begrudged. A late right reverend bishop, who thought it a moral duty to resist an extortionate charge for such service, and he did so even in a court of law,—the well-intended, but isolated effort, was fruitless. Another reason for the impunity of the extortion is, that much of the funeral expenses are from trust-funds of the higher and middle classes, who influence the practice of the lower classes; and the trustees have but weak motives and means to defend them. In so far as the funeral expenses are concerned, such funds, as will appear in respect to the funds raised for burial amongst the labouring classes, are an exposed prey.

§ 49. If there be any sort of service, which principles of civic polity, and motives of ordinary benevolence and charity, require to be placed under public regulation, for the protection of the private individual who is helpless, it is surely this, at the time of extreme misery and helplessness of the means of decent interment. On inspecting the condition of the whole class of persons engaged in the performance of the service of undertakers, it may be confidently stated that the class who only act as agents, could not suffer, and must gain morally and socially, and ultimately pecuniarily by a change that would be beneficial to the public. No class can be otherwise than benefited by change, from an occupation in which they are kept waiting and dependent on profits which fall to them at wide and irregular intervals. Notwithstanding the immensely disproportionate profits of these persons in some cases, and the immense aggregate expenditure to the public, there appear to be very few wealthy undertakers. They are described by one of them, “as being some few of them very respectable, but the great majority as men mostly in a small grubbing way of business.” In this trade we have now the means of knowing to an unit, from the mortuary registration, the amount of service required; and we have some means of obtaining a proximate estimate of the number of persons engaged in its performance.

§ 50. The number of deaths per diem in the metropolis (inclusive of the death of those who die in the workhouses, whose interment being provided for by the parish and union officers, are not cases for every-day competition) is on an average of three years 114. The number of persons whose sole business is that of undertakers, whose names are enumerated in the Post-office Directory for the year 1843 for the metropolis is 275. Besides these there are 258 “undertakers and carpenters,” 34 “undertakers and upholsterers,” 56 “undertakers and cabinet-makers,” 51 “undertakers and builders,” 25 “undertakers and appraisers,” 19 “undertakers and auctioneers,” 7 “undertakers and house-agents,” 3 “undertakers and fancy cabinet-makers,” 2 “undertakers and packing-case makers;” making in all no less than 730 persons for the 114 deaths, or between six and seven undertakers waiting for the chance of every private funeral. But these are masters who, whether they act as agents or principals, have shops and establishments, and the list does not include the whole of them, as the Directory is not understood to include all the masters residing in bye-streets and places. Some have two and three funerals per diem, and some eight or ten; and it is apparent, even under the existing imperfect arrangements, the undertaker’s service might be better performed by forty or fifty than by the 275 principals, who have no other occupation, and whose establishments and expenses, as well as the cost of their own maintenance, must, if the business be equally distributed, be charged on little more than two funerals a-week. If the business be not equally distributed, and a minority have (as will have been perceived) a much larger share of the funerals than the rest, the majority will be the more severely driven, as they are in fact, to charge their expenses on a much smaller number of funerals. When the additional number of tradesmen of mixed occupations are brought as waiters for the chances of employment, the number of burials distributed amongst them all is reduced to 10 funerals to every master in 11 weeks, or less than one a-week each. It is stated, that much larger numbers than are named in the Directory retain the insignia of undertakers in their shop-windows, for the sake of the profits of one or two funerals a-year. They merely transmit the orders to the furnishing undertaker, who supplies materials and men at a comparatively low rate; and it is stated that the real service is rendered by about sixty tradesmen of this class, who compete with each other in furnishing the supplies to a multitude of inferior tradesmen, probably exceeding 1000, amongst whom the excessive profits arising from extortionate charges are thus irregularly distributed. The profits of these agents or second parties are often, however, divided with others by the system (which pursues the head of the family to the last) of corrupting servants for their “good word” or influence by bribes or allowances, against which the only effectual defence is care to secure purchases at prices so low as to preclude them. Physicians of great eminence have expressed their horror at the facts of which they have been informed, of large sums of money having been promised and given to head servants to secure to the particular tradesman the performance of the funeral. The undertakers who were questioned on the subject admitted explicitly that such is “an occasional but not an universal practice,” and that such sums as 10_l._, 20_l._, and even 50_l._, have been known to have been given for such orders, according to the scale of expense and profit of the funeral. One undertaker stated that whenever a medical man took the trouble to bring him an order for a funeral, he always, as a matter of course, paid him a fee; and he believed it was a common practice. It was, however, only the inferior practitioners who brought these orders. Physicians usually carefully abstain from giving any recommendations of tradesmen in such cases.

§ 51. Such being the state of the service as respects the multitude of principals; the state of the service as respects the inferior dependents is, that as at present conducted it is, as far as it goes, demoralizing. The journeymen, who form the superfluous retinue of attendants for whom so much expense is incurred, gain very little by their extravagant pay. “They are,” says one master undertaker, “kept long waiting, and are taken away to a distance from their homes, and are put to great expense in drinking at public-houses, and acquiring very bad habits.” The accounts given by undertakers themselves of the conduct of the men composing the hired retinue of funerals, as at present conducted, are corroborative of the following instance given by a gentleman who was a witness of the scene described:—

“If the relatives of one who has been honoured with what is called a respectable funeral could witness the scenes which commonly ensue, even at the very place where the last ceremony has been performed, they would be scandalized at the mockery of solemnity which has preceded the disgusting indecency exhibited at the instant when the mourners are removed. An empty hearse, returning at a quick pace from a funeral, with half a dozen red-faced fellows sitting with their legs across the pegs which held the feathers, is a common exhibition. But let the relatives see what has preceded the ride home of the undertaker’s men. In the spring of 1842, two friends walked into a village inn about twelve miles from London, for the purpose of dining. One had recently sustained a severe domestic calamity. The inn is generally distinguished for its neatness and quiet. All now seemed confusion. The travellers were shown up-stairs to a comfortable room. But the shouts, the laughing, the rapping the tables, the ringing the bells, in an adjoining room were beyond endurance; and when the landlady appeared with her bill of fare, she apologized for what was so different from the ordinary habit of her guests. “Is it a club feast?” “Oh, no, gentlemen; they are the undertaker’s men—blackguards I should say. They have been burying poor Lord——; he was much beloved here. Shame on them. But they will soon go back to town, for they are nearly drunk.” The travellers left the house till it was cleared of these harpies.”

§ 52. Men of the class who are every day to be seen stopping in parties at public houses on their return from the places of burial, are intrusted without care or selection to perform what may be shown to be important sanitary and civil ministrations of enshrouding and preparing the body for burial. The impressions created by the bearing of these coarse, unknown, unrespected, irresponsible hands, add to the revolting popular associations with death.

The extent of the public interests affected by so much of the practice of interment, as the undertaker’s service embraces, will be better appreciated in a subsequent stage of this report, and after the consideration of the facts unfolded in the course of an examination of the influence of the expenses of funerals specifically on the states of mind, social habits and economy of the labouring classes in towns of England.

_Specific Effects of the Expenses of Funerals, and Associations to defray them amongst the Labouring Classes._

§ 53. The desire to secure respectful interment of themselves and their relations is, perhaps, the strongest and most widely-diffused feeling amongst the labouring classes of the population. Subscriptions may be obtained from large classes of them for their burial when it can be obtained neither for their own relief in sickness, nor for the education of their children, nor for any other object. The amount of the twenty-four millions of deposits in the savings’ banks of the United Kingdom is 29_l._ each depositor. Judging from particular investigations, it would appear that upwards of 5_l._ of each deposit may be considered a sum devoted to defray the expenses of burial, and about as much more to provide mourning and other expenses. From six to eight millions of savings may be considered as devoted to these objects.

§ 54. The following is an answer to some inquiries on the subject from the secretary of the St. Martin’s Lane Provident Institution, an institution in which the deposits amount to 1,168,850_l._, and the depositors, amounting to upwards of 32,000, comprehend some of the most frugal and respectable of the labouring classes:—

As you wished me to mention any facts within my knowledge, arising out of this institution and its concerns, bearing upon the question of _sepulture_, I would first state, that the average _annual number_ of deaths occurring amongst our depositors (now about 32,000 in number) in the course of the last nine years, has been 231; these, taking the last of such years for an example, are divisible under the classes shown by the subjoined statement. By reference to this statement it will be seen how large a class of our depositors consists of individuals of the poorer or labouring population; and amongst that class, in regard to the question of _sepulture_, from the opportunity afforded me of inspecting the charges made for funerals, I should say that the expenses incurred for the funeral and interment alone are seldom so little as 4_l._, generally amount to 5_l._ and upwards, and not unfrequently exceed 6_l._