the first day of November is devoted to visiting the cemeteries and decorating the tombs of relatives and friends. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--_Gallo-Roman bas-relief--found in Paris about fifty years ago--representing a family surrounding the body of a woman who has recently died._--Museum of the Louvre.] To return to the Greeks, it should be observed that their respect for the dead was remarkable, even amongst the ancients. If a man accidentally found a body on the high-road, he was obliged to turn aside and bury it. When the people saw a funeral procession pass, they uncovered their heads and murmured a prayer. The laws against the violation of the sepulchres of the dead were most severe, and any one who was caught damaging a tomb was usually flogged for his trouble, but if he overthrew it and disturbed the body, he was burnt alive. If a person died at sea, all the people on board the ship assembled at sunset, and cried out three times the name of the departed, who was usually thrown overboard. In the morning they repeated these calls, and so forth until the ship entered port. This was done in order to recall the names of the deceased, or at any rate to keep them propitious. When an illustrious person died in Greece, the ceremonies were on a most elaborate scale, and even accompanied by games, which lasted for many days. Readers of Homer's "Iliad" will remember his magnificent description of the death and funeral of Patroclus. Among the Romans the men were not obliged to wear mourning, but it was the fashion for women to do so. Very wisely, children under three years of age were not forced to put on black, even for their parents, and after that age, only for as many months as they had lived years. The Roman ladies only wore mourning for their parents for one year. Men were expected to wear it for the same period in the case of the death of a father, mother, wife, sister, or brother. Numa fixed the period of wearing deep mourning for the nearest of kin as ten months. People, however, were not obliged to wear mourning for any of their relatives who had been in prison, were bankrupt, or in any way outlawed. Numa published a minute series of laws regulating the mourning of his people. A very odd item in these included an order that women should not scratch their faces, or make an exceptional fuss at a public funeral. This was possibly decreed to put some stop to abuses which the hired mourners had occasioned: scratching their faces, for instance, so as to injure themselves, and making an over-dismal wail which was offensive to the genuine mourners.