"Six men to be my bearers, who are known to be the greatest
snuff-takers in the parish of St. James, Westminster; instead of
mourning, each to wear a snuff-coloured beaver hat, which I desire may
be bought for that purpose, and given to them. Six maidens of my old
acquaintance, _viz._ &c., to bear my pall, each to bear a proper hood,
and to carry a box filled with the best Scotch snuff to take for their
refreshment as they go along. Before my corpse, I desire the minister
may be invited to walk and to take a certain quantity of the said
snuff, not exceeding one pound, to whom also I bequeath five guineas
on condition of his so doing. And I also desire my old and faithful
servant, Sarah Stuart, to walk before the corpse, to distribute every
twenty yards a large handful of Scotch snuff to the ground and upon
the crowd who may possibly follow me to the burial-place; on which
condition I bequeath her 20_l._ And I also desire that at least two
bushels of the said snuff may be distributed at the door of my house in
Boyle Street."
She then particularizes her legacies; and over and above every legacy
she desires may be given one pound of good Scotch snuff, which she
calls the grand cordial of nature.
Burial Bequests.
In June, 1864, there died at Drogheda one Miss Hardman, at the
advanced age of ninety-two years. She was buried in the family vault
in Peter's Protestant Church. The funeral took place on the eighth
day of her decease. It is not usual in Ireland to allow so long an
interval to elapse between the time of a person's death and burial; in
this instance it was owing to the expressed wish of the deceased, and
this originated in a very curious piece of family and local history.
Everybody has heard of the lady who was buried, being supposed dead,
and who bearing with her to the tomb, on her finger, a ring of rare
price, this was the means of her being rescued from her charnel
prison-house. A butler in the family of the lady, having his cupidity
excited, entered the vault at midnight in order to possess himself of
the ring, and in removing it from the finger the lady was restored to
consciousness and made her way in her grave-clothes to her mansion. She
lived many years afterwards before she was finally consigned to the
vault. The heroine of the story was a member of the Hardman family--in
fact, the late Miss Hardman's mother--and the vault in Peter's Church
was the locality where the startling revival scene took place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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