§ 83. In justification of the funeral exactions from the labouring classes, it is sometimes alleged that if they did not expend the money in the funereal decorations, they would expend it in drink. But this would only occur in a minority of cases, and in those only for a time. The reduction would be an immediate and most important relief in an immense number of cases of widowhood, and especially in those cases where there has been no insurance, where the widow incurs debts which often reduce her to destitution and dependence on the poor’s rates, or on charity. It forms a large part of the business of some of the small-debt courts in the metropolis to enforce payments of the undertakers’ bills, incurred under such circumstances. For all classes, what is deemed by them respectful interment is to be considered a necessity; and in general the expenditure beyond what is necessary to ensure such interment competes not with extravagancy, but with high moral obligations. By the arrangements which throw the savings of the poor family into the grave, children are left destitute, and creditors are often defrauded, and heavy taxes levied on the sympathies of neighbours and friends.[23] _Failure of the objects of the common Expenditure on Funerals._ § 84. Notwithstanding the immense sacrifices made by the labouring classes for the purpose, neither they nor the middle classes obtain solemn and respectful interment, nor does it appear practicable that they should obtain it by any arrangement of the present parochial means of interment in crowded districts. § 85. Few persons can have witnessed funeral processions passing in mid-day through the thronged and busy streets of the metropolis, without being struck with the extreme inappropriateness of the times and places chosen for such processions. This want of regulation as to appropriate times is the subject of complaints, which must attach, even to a greater extent, to numerous processions, without regulation, from the centre of the populous town districts to the suburbs. Mr. Wild, the undertaker, was asked—