Produced by Delphine Lettau, Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) Dealings with the Dead. DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD. BY A SEXTON OF THE OLD SCHOOL. VOLUME II. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY DUTTON AND WENTWORTH, 33 AND 35 CONGRESS STREET: AND TICKNOR AND FIELDS, CORNER OF WASHINGTON AND SCHOOL STREETS. MDCCCLVI. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by DUTTON AND WENTWORTH, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Dealings with the Dead. BY A SEXTON OF THE OLD SCHOOL. No. XC. My earliest recollections of some, among the dead and buried aristocracy of Boston, find a ready embodiment, in cocked hats of enormous proportions, queues reaching to their middles, cloaks of scarlet broadcloth, lined with silk, and faced with velvet, and just so short, as to exhibit the swell of the leg, silk stockings, and breeches, highly polished shoes, and large, square, silver buckles, embroidered vests, with deep lappet pockets, similar to those, which were worn, in the age of _Louis Quatorze_, shirts ruffled, at the bosoms and sleeves, doeskin or beaver gloves, and glossy, black, Surinam walking canes, six feet in length, and commonly carried by the middle. Of the last of the Capulets we know nearly all, that it is desirable to know. Of the last of the cocked hats we are not so clearly certified. The dimensions of the military cocked hat were terrible; and, like those enormous, bear skin caps, which are in use, at present, eminently calculated to put the enemy to flight. I have seen one of those enormous cocked hats, which had long been preserved, as a memorial of the wearer's gallantry. In one corner, and near the extremity, was a round hole, said to have been made by a musket ball, at the battle of White Plains, Nov. 30, 1776. As I contemplated this relic, it was impossible to avoid the comforting reflection, that the head of the gallant proprietor was at a very safe distance from the bullet.