FIG. 99.--AT LUCERNE. To "Iodoco Bernardo Hartman," died 1752, aged 67 years. The two last-given illustrations may possibly belong to the category of mural tablets rather than that of gravestones, being fixed apparently by original design, and not by afterthought, as in our "converted" burial-grounds, against the outer walls of the church. There are, however, no other remains which I could discover bearing any resemblance to the old British headstone, and the evanescent character which seems to have attached for a certain period to the memorials of the dead among our neighbours abroad forbids the expectation that any such as those which have appeared in our earlier chapters are to be found in Europe outside the boundaries of our Empire. In more modern observances, especially in the centres of population, English and continental manners more nearly approximate; and in the many new cemeteries which are now to be found adjacent to the cities and large towns of Western Europe there are tombs and gravestones as many and as costly as are to be found in any round London. In Germany the present practice appears to be single interments, and one inscription only on the stone, and that studiously brief. Thus: [Transcriber's note: inscriptions below enclosed in a border] Eduard Schmidt Geb d. 8 Oct., 1886. Gest d. 10 Jan., 1887. This I copied in the cemetery at Schaffhausen. But at Hendon, a north-west suburb of London, has recently been placed against the church wall a still simpler memorial, a small slab of marble, inscribed: Carl Richard Loose B. 21. 1. 52: D. 14. 10. 81. For brevity _in excelsis_ the following, from the cemetery at Heidelberg, can hardly be eclipsed: Michael Seiler 1805.--1887. Sometimes the asterisk is used by the Germans to denote birth, and the dagger (or cross) for death, thus: Hier Risht in Gott Natalie Brethke * 1850 ± 1884 CHAPTER XIII. VERY OLD GRAVESTONES.