On Wed, 03 May 2006 17:25:55 GMT, Werehatrack
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>On Wed, 03 May 2006 13:23:31 GMT, "Dave Lyon" <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>>
>>> But do I think the risk of causing massive property damage or injury to
>>> someone else on my motorbike is very high? No. Certainly it's not a
>>> high enough risk to justify voluntarily doing business with people who
>>> bribed the government into requiring me to buy their profit-making
>>> product. I can be coerced into buying it, but I won't voluntarily do
>>> business with that kind of gangster.
>>>
>>> Chalo Colina
>>>
>>
>>I wonder...Do you plan on using a mortician in the future.
>>They did the same thing.
>
>This is one place where a little deregulation might go a long way. A
>century ago, in much of the US, it was still legal for a family to
>simply bury the deceased themselves in the family plot. I know that
>there are states where this is not the case now.
Dear Werehatrack,
You do-it-yourselfers and mail-order casket companies will
be the death of the local body shop. I append a dignified
brochure in rebuttal.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Chapter 43 The Art of Inhumation
ABOUT the same time, I encountered a man in the street, whom
I had not seen for six or seven years; and something like
this talk followed. I said--
'But you used to look sad and oldish; you don't now. Where
did you get all this youth and bubbling cheerfulness? Give
me the address.'
He chuckled blithely, took off his shining tile, pointed to
a notched pink circlet of paper pasted into its crown, with
something lettered on it, and went on chuckling while I
read, 'J. B----, UNDERTAKER.' Then he clapped his hat on,
gave it an irreverent tilt to leeward, and cried out--
'That's what's the matter! It used to be rough times with
me when you knew me--insurance-agency business, you know;
mighty irregular. Big fire, all right--brisk trade for ten
days while people scared; after that, dull policy-business
till next fire. Town like this don't have fires often
enough--a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in a row that he
gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the business!
People don't wait for examples to die. No, sir, they drop
off right along--there ain't any dull spots in the
undertaker line. I just started in with two or three little
old coffins and a hired hearse, and now look at the thing!
I've worked up a business here that would satisfy any man,
don't care who he is. Five years ago, lodged in an attic;
live in a swell house now, with a mansard roof, and all the
modern inconveniences.'
'Does a coffin pay so well. Is there much profit on a
coffin?'
'Go-way! How you talk!' Then, with a confidential wink, a
dropping of the voice, and an impressive laying of his hand
on my arm; 'Look here; there's one thing in this world which
isn't ever cheap. That's a coffin. There's one thing in this
world which a person don't ever try to jew you down on.
That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world which a
person don't say--"I'll look around a little, and if I find
I can't do better I'll come back and take it." That's a
coffin. There's one thing in this world which a person
won't take in pine if he can go walnut; and won't take in
walnut if he can go mahogany; and won't take in mahogany
if he can go an iron casket with silver door-plate and
bronze handles. That's a coffin. And there's one thing in
this world which you don't have to worry around after a
person to get him to pay for. And that's a coffin.
Undertaking?--why it's the dead-surest business in
Christendom, and the nobbiest.
'Why, just look at it. A rich man won't have anything but
your very best; and you can just pile it on, too--pile it on
and sock it to him--he won't ever holler. And you take in a
poor man, and if you work him right he'll bust himself on a
single lay-out. Or especially a woman. F'r instance: Mrs.
O'Flaherty comes in--widow--wiping her eyes and kind of
moaning. Unhandkerchiefs one eye, bats it around tearfully
over the stock; says--
'"And fhat might ye ask for that wan?"
'"Thirty-nine dollars, madam," says I.
'"It 's a foine big price, sure, but Pat shall be buried
like a gintleman, as he was, if I have to work me fingers
off for it. I'll have that wan, sor."
'"Yes, madam," says I, "and it is a very good one, too; not
costly, to be sure, but in this life we must cut our garment
to our clothes, as the saying is." And as she starts out, I
heave in, kind of casually, "This one with the white satin
lining is a beauty, but I am afraid--well, sixty-five
dollars is a rather--rather--but no matter, I felt obliged
to say to Mrs. O'Shaughnessy--"
'"D'ye mane to soy that Bridget O'Shaughnessy bought the
mate to that joo-ul box to ship that dhrunken divil to
Purgatory in?"
'"Yes, madam."
'"Then Pat shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it takes
the last rap the O'Flaherties can raise; and moind you,
stick on some extras, too, and I'll give ye another dollar."
'And as I lay-in with the livery stables, of course I don't
forget to mention that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy hired fifty-four
dollars' worth of hacks and flung as much style into
Dennis's funeral as if he had been a duke or an assassin.
And of course she sails in and goes the O'Shaughnessy
about four hacks and an omnibus better. That used to be,
but that's all played now; that is, in this particular town.
The Irish got to piling up hacks so, on their funerals, that
a funeral left them ragged and hungry for two years
afterward; so the priest pitched in and broke it all up. He
don't allow them to have but two hacks now, and sometimes
only one.'
'Well,' said I, 'if you are so light-hearted and jolly in
ordinary times, what must you be in an epidemic?'
He shook his head.
'No, you're off, there. We don't like to see an epidemic.
An epidemic don't pay. Well, of course I don't mean that,
exactly; but it don't pay in proportion to the regular
thing. Don't it occur to you, why?'
No.
'Think.'
'I can't imagine. What is it?'
'It's just two things.'
'Well, what are they?'
'One's Embamming.'
'And what's the other?'
'Ice.'
'How is that?'
'Well, in ordinary times, a person dies, and we lay him up
in ice; one day two days, maybe three, to wait for friends
to come. Takes a lot of it--melts fast. We charge jewelry
rates for that ice, and war-prices for attendance. Well,
don't you know, when there's an epidemic, they rush 'em to
the cemetery the minute the breath's out. No market for ice
in an epidemic. Same with Embamming. You take a family
that's able to embam, and you've got a soft thing. You can
mention sixteen different ways to do it--though there AIN'T
only one or two ways, when you come down to the bottom facts
of it--and they'll take the highest-priced way, every time.
It's human nature--human nature in grief. It don't reason,
you see. Time being, it don't care a dam. All it wants is
physical immortality for deceased, and they're willing to
pay for it. All you've got to do is to just be ca'm and
stack it up--they'll stand the racket. Why, man, you can
take a defunct that you couldn't GIVE away; and get your
embamming traps around you and go to work; and in a couple
of hours he is worth a cool six hundred--that's what HE'S
worth. There ain't anything equal to it but trading rats
for di'monds in time of famine. Well, don't you see, when
there's an epidemic, people don't wait to embam. No, indeed
they don't; and it hurts the business like hell-th, as we
say--hurts it like hell-th, HEALTH, see?--Our little joke in
the trade. Well, I must be going. Give me a call whenever
you need any--I mean, when you're going by, sometime.'
In his joyful high spirits, he did the exaggerating himself,
if any has been done. I have not enlarged on him.
With the above brief references to inhumation, let us leave
the subject. As for me, I hope to be cremated. I made that
remark to my pastor once, who said, with what he seemed to
think was an impressive manner--
'I wouldn't worry about that, if I had your chances.'
Much he knew about it--the family all so opposed to it.
--Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi"