Some very rich men during their lives seem to enjoy the luxury of preparing at great expense the mausoleums they wish to occupy after death. M. Lalanne, a wealthy Parisian, went to the other extreme. He had a horror of anything like ostentatious funerals, and after bequeathing over a million francs to the various public institutions of his native city, he directed that his body be buried as cheaply as possible--in fact, like that of a pauper. A shabby one-horse vehicle conveyed his body to the _fosse commune_ (the Potter’s Field), and the total cost of the funeral was only six francs, that being the charge for the cheapest kind of funeral under the French system, in which the undertaker’s business is a government monopoly. A WOMAN HATER Altogether unique was the whim of a rich old bachelor, who, having endured much from “attempts made by my family to put me under the yoke of matrimony,” conceived and nursed such an antipathy to the fair sex as to impose upon his executors the duty of carrying out what is probably the most ungallant provision ever contained in a will. The words are as follows: “I beg that my executors will see that I am buried where there is no woman interred, either to the right or to the left of me. Should this not be practicable in the ordinary course of things, I direct that they purchase three graves, and bury me in the middle one of the three, leaving the two others unoccupied.” WITH THE SAINTS ON BARDSEY ISLAND The late Lord Newborough, an Englishman, made the following curious provision in his will: he gave most explicit directions that, after a certain period had elapsed, his body was to be exhumed and reinterred in Bardsey Island. This island, it will be remembered, lies to the north of Cardigan Bay, and it is reputed to have had no fewer than 20,000 saints buried in its soil. WITH BOTH WIVES Another individual desired to be buried in the space between the graves of his first and second wives; there are numerous instances of such an adjustment in American cemeteries, and wills are not uncommon which provide for such last resting places. TOO MODEST FOR VIVISECTION The Duchess of Northumberland, widow of the Protector, concluded her will as follows: “In nowise let me be opened after I am dead; I have not used to be very bold before women, much more would I be loth to come into the hands of any living man, be he physician or surgeon.” The very reverse, we may remark, of the instructions given by Katherine of Aragon on her deathbed. WISHES OF AN INFIDEL