────────────┴────────┴─────────────────────────────────────┴─────────── The above, which can only be submitted as a proximate estimate, certainly shows an amount of money annually thrown into the grave, at the expense of the living, which exceeded all previous anticipations; and yet, from the information derived from the inspection of collections of undertakers’ bills for funerals, I cannot but consider it an under rather than an over estimate, and that the actual expenses of interment in the metropolis would be found, on a closer inquiry, to be nearly a million per annum. Hypothetical estimates of the amount of money which must be expended to maintain so large a body of men as that engaged in the business and service of the undertaker are confirmatory of this view. Even in Scotland the expense of the decent burial of a labouring man is not less than 5_l._, exclusive of the expense of mourning. I have been shown the payments on account of burials of an affiliated association of a convivial and benevolent character called the “Odd Fellows,” which has upwards of 150,000 affiliated members, chiefly of the better class of artisans, in different parts of the country. With them, the payments usually amount to 10_l._ per funeral. The expenses of burial of some of the smaller descriptions of shopkeepers may not much exceed the expense of the undescribed class, which is taken us an average between the sum set down for labourers and that for tradesmen; but the latter is certainly a low average for the metropolis. All the information tends to show that the expenses of the funerals of persons in the condition of gentry are, on the average (inclusive of burial dues), much higher than the sum stated. From inquiries I have made as to the practice in the offices of the Masters in Chancery, where executors’ accounts are examined, I learn that if an undertaker’s bill is 60_l._ or 70_l._ (exclusive of burial dues), for a person whose rank in life was that of the clergy, officers of the army or navy, or members of the legal or medical professions, “it would, according to all usage, be allowed as of course, and notwithstanding it should turn out that the estate was insolvent.”[15] The cost of the funerals of persons of rank and title, it will have been seen, varies from 1500_l._ to 1000_l._, or 800_l._, or less, as it is a town or country funeral. The expenses of the funerals of gentry of the better condition, it will have been seen, vary from 200_l._ to 400_l._, and are stated to be seldom so low as 150_l._ § 45.