In the preceding chapter the funeral of a penniless Albanian is noted; in 1696 Ryseck Swart also became one of the church-poor of Albany. She was not wholly penniless; she had a little silver and a few petty jewels, and a little strip of pasture land, worth in all about three hundred guilders. These she transferred to the church, for the Consistory to take charge of and dole out to her. A good soul, Marritje Lievertse, was from that time paid by the church thirty-six guilders a month for caring for Ryseck. I do not doubt she had tender care, for she was the last of the real church-poor (soon they had paupers and an almshouse), and she lived four years, and cost the parish two thousand two hundred and twenty-nine guilders. She died on February 15, 1700, and, though a pauper, she departed this life neither unwept, unhonored, nor unsung. Had she been the cherished wife of a burgomaster or _schepen_, she could scarce have had a more fully rounded or more proper funeral. The bill, which was paid by the church, was as follows:-- g. s. 3 dry boards for a coffin 7 10 ³⁄₄ lb. nails 1 10 Making coffin 24 Cartage 10 Half a vat and an anker of good beer 27 1 gallon Rum 21 6 gallons Madeira for women and men 84 Sugar and _cruyery_ 5 150 Sugar cakes 15 Tobacco and pipes 5 Grave digger 30 Use of pall 10 Wife Jans Lockermans 36 ------------- 232 guilders. Rosenboom, for many years the _voor-leeser_ and _dood-graver_ and _aanspreecker_ in Albany, sent in a bill of twelve guilders for delivering invitations to the funeral,--which bill was rejected by the deacons as exorbitant. But the invitations were delivered just the same, for even colonial paupers had friends, and her coffin was not made of green wood held together with wooden pegs, which some poor bodies had to endure; and the one hundred and fifty _doed-koecks_ and Madeira for the women very evenly balanced the plentiful beer and wine and tobacco for the men. Truly, to quote one of Dyckman’s letters from Albany, “the poor’s purse here was richly garnisht.” An account of Albany, written by a traveller thereto in 1789, showed the continued existence of these funeral customs. It runs thus:--