The Sobha Bazar Rajah family, the Dey family of Simla, the Mullick and Tagore families of Patooriaghatta, all of Calcutta, were said to have spent upwards of L20,000 or two lacks of Rupees each on a funeral ceremony. They not only gave rich presents to almost all the learned Brahmins of Bengal, in money and kind, fed vast crowds of men of all classes, but likewise distributed immense sums among beggars and poor people,[120] who for the sake of one Rupee, walked a distance of perhaps thirty miles, bringing with them their little children in order to increase their numerical strength. Some really destitute women, far advanced in a state of pregnancy, were known to have been delivered in the midst of this densely crowded multitude. Although, now-a-days, the authorities do not sanction such a tumultuous gathering, or tolerate such a nuisance oftentimes attended with fatal accidents, no _Shrad_ of any note at all takes place without the assemblage of a certain number of beggars and paupers, who receive from two to four annas each. After the twentieth day, the son, accompanied by a Brahmin and a servant who carries a small carpet for the Baboo to sit on, walks barefooted to the house of each and every one of his relations, friends and neighbours, to announce that the _Shrad_ is to take place on such a day, _i. e._, on the thirty-first day after death, and to request that they should honour him with their presence and see that the ceremony is properly performed, adding such other complimentary epithets as the occasion suggests. This ceremonious visit is called _lowkata_, and those who are visited return the compliment in time. The practice is deserving of commendation, inasmuch as it manifests a grateful remembrance for the memory of one to whom he is indebted for his being.