17: The interesting custom of placing natural flowers and wreaths upon graves, is in every respect preferable to that which we see practised in Continental burial-grounds, where the graves are often covered with immortelles, vases of gaudy artificial flowers, images, &c. We have seen as many as fifty wreaths of artificial flowers and tinselled paper, in every stage of decomposition, over one grave in the cemetery of Père la Chaise, in Paris. In Wales it is a more general practice than in England, to adorn the graves with fresh flowers on Easter Day. 18: This story is true of a parish in Monmouthshire. 19: It is comparatively seldom that any other than the funerals of the _poor_ take place on Sunday, and the reason commonly assigned is--that it is the only day on which their friends can attend. In one, at least, of the large metropolitan cemeteries, exclusively used as a burial-place for the _rich_, no funerals _ever_ take place on a Sunday. 20: Let us hope that the time is near when this objectionable and unsightly appendage will be banished from our funeral processions. The late Mr. Charles Dickens, in his will, forbad the wearing of hat-bands at his funeral. 21: "In several parts of the north of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of boxwood is placed at the door of the house from which the coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a sprig of the boxwood and throws it into the grave of the deceased."--_Wordsworth_ (_Notes, Excursion_, p. 87). 22: Great care was taken by the medieval architects to make the porches of their churches as beautiful as possible. During some periods, especially the Norman, they seem to have bestowed more labour upon them than upon any other portion of the building. Both externally and internally they were richly decorated, and often abounded in emblematic tracery. 23: "The custom formerly was for the couple, who were to enter upon this holy state, to be placed at the _church door_, where the priest was used to join their hands, and perform the greater part of the matrimonial office. It was here the husband endowed his wife with the dowry before contracted for."--_Wheatley._ In a few church porches there are, or have been, galleries, which seem to have been intended to accommodate a choir for these and other festive occasions. 24: "The porch of the church was anciently used for the performance of several religious ceremonies appertaining to Baptism, Matrimony, and the solemn commemoration of Christ's Passion in Holy Week," &c.--_Brandon's Gothic Architecture._ The Office for the Churching of Women also used to be said at the church porch.