I’m delighted to announce the publication of my latest bookA is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death. The book is available at Amazon in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia, but I’m told that it can be ordered by your favorite bookstore or library from book distributor Ingrams. (Please ask your library or bookstore to order it!) I’m told that Ingrams distributes to Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, Chapters/Indigo, Blackwell, Foyles, and a host of other stores, so those retailers either have it for sale on their website or it is in their database so you can order it. If you’d like a signed copy, please contact me with a message on this page or at my Victorian Book of the Dead FB page.
A is for Arsenic is a guide to the basics of Victorian mourning. The book is 208 pages packed with the basics of Victorian mourning and death, with brilliantly gothic illustrations by Landis Blair. Each entry includes a pen and ink illustration along with 19th-century anecdotes ranging from macabre stories to jokes from the Victorian press that explain the concepts and artifacts of Victorian death. (Plus sinister little poems in homage to Edward Gorey.)
I answer your dead-serious questions including: Why did body snatchers strip a body before carrying it away? How long do you mourn for someone who has left you money in their will? What was a coffin torpedo? What is inheritance powder? Who killed off keening? What is dead water? A is for Arsenic also debunks several Victorian mourning myths.
There are 26 alphabetical entries—from Arsenic to Zinc, (see below) along with an informative glossary, appendix, and detailed bibliography. Here are the topics: A – Arsenic; B – Bier; C – Crape; D – Death Token; E – Embalming; F – Fisk Burial Case; G – Gates Ajar; H – Hearse; I – Ice Box; J – Jet; K – Keen; L – Lychgate; M – Mute; N – Necropolis; O – Obelisk; P – Post Mortem; Q – Queen Victoria; R – Resurrection Men; S – Shroud; T – Tear Bottle; U – Undertaker; V – Veil; X – Sexton; W – Weepers; Y – Churchyard; Z – Zinc
How Widow Doyle Married the Man Who Drove Her to Her late Husband’s Funeral.
IN WEEDS ONLY A FEW WEEKS.
Says Flannigan Was a Theological Student in Dublin, but He Ran Away From Home.
BECAME A HOSTLER HERE.
If He Hadn’t Followed the Wrong Hearse, Quinn Says He Wouldn’t Have Won a Bride.
Quinn says that if Flannigan had not become confused on the Sunday he drove the Widow Doyle to her first husband’s funeral and followed the wrong hearse to Calvary from the Brooklyn side of the river he would still be slaving in the North Moore street livery stable instead of doing the World’s Fair in a style befitting a gentleman of means. And Quinn is a man whom all Flatbush says you may believe.
Quinn attributes Flannigan’s present position to a series of accidents of which the one mentioned above is the culmination. In the first place, Quinn says, Flannigan’s father selected a profession for his son which was distasteful to the latter, causing him to strike out for himself. Coming to America he was compelled to go to work in a livery stable. Then he was ordered to drive the hack hired by the Widow Doyle, and for losing sight of the hearse, which he expected to follow, he was discharged. In desperation he appealed to the widow to intercede with his employer in his behalf, which she did. And finally he wooed her himself and won her. The time that elapsed between the funeral and the marriage, Quinn declares, was less than six weeks.
NOW FOR THE DETAILS.
This is a brief outline of the remarkable tale Quinn tells. To go into the details, which he also furnishes, carries you to Ireland. It was there that Flannigan was born twenty-six years ago. He was named William Frederick. His father, a wealthy Dublin merchant, wanted him to enter the ministry and, looking toward that end, sent him to college.
Flannigan studied theology for a while and then revolted. His father, however, wouldn’t listen to a change of plans. He insisted that the young man should become a minister. So Flannigan concluded to come to America.
He arrived her last April with very little money but lots of grit. He tried to get a place as a bookkeeper or a clerk, but was unable to find any vacancies. In desperation he applied for a job as hostler in a North Moore street livery stable, which he got. This particular livery stable where Flannigan worked makes a specialty of furnishing carriages for funerals on Sundays. Ordinarily the proprietor has enough coachmen for all occasions. On the Sunday in question, however, he was short a man, and so he pressed Flannigan into the service.
It so happened that the funeral Flannigan’s coach was assigned to attend was that of William Doyle, and the occupants of the coach were the Widow Doyle herself and a relative. This in itself wouldn’t have significant if Flannigan hadn’t got confused and followed the wrong hearse to Calvary from the Brooklyn side of the river, as mentioned in the opening paragraph.
FLANNIGAN GETS CONFUSED.
The funeral of William Doyle was a big one. There were more carriages in line than the eastside had seen for many a day. This is easily understood when it is known that the deceased was worth at least $25,000.
The procession moved from Henry street to the East River ferry at the foot of Grand street. Driver Flannigan’s position in the line should have been immediately behind the black plumed hearse drawn by two black horses in heavy mourning trappings. Driver Flannigan was green on the box of a coach, however, and instead of getting near the front of the procession he got crowded near the rear.
When the ferry was reached there were so many carriages in line that they could not all get on the same boat. One of those which had to wait for the second trip was the coach containing the Widow Doyle driven by Flannigan. But the curtains were drawn and the widow didn’t know it.
Upon reaching the Brooklyn side of the river Driver Flannigan saw a hearse waiting at the head of a line of carriages. It was a black plumed hearse, too, drawn by two black horse in heavy mourning trappings, and it was only natural that Driver Flannigan should have pulled his coach into the line.
It looked also as if they had been waiting for him because the procession got under way immediately after he joined it.
A SURPRISE FOR THE MOURNERS.
In due time the grave in Calvary was reached and the many mourners alighted. Widow Doyle was among them. They gathered around the open grave, and then apparently for the first time the widow made observations through her heavy widow’s weeds. The result was startling. The faces of the mourners were strange to her.
“Theses are not my relatives,” she shrieked. “This is not the casket which contains the remains of my beloved husband.”
Quinn, of Flatbush, suggests that you can imagine the sensation this announcement caused.
Driver Flannigan lost control of most of his senses on the spot. The more Widow Doyle hysterically assailed him the more demoralized he became. She demanded that he drive for his life and find the grave where her husband was to be buried, and he lost no time in getting away.
Flannigan found the grave in a remote corner of the cemetery just as the undertaker was preparing to lower the casket. He had waited as long as he could for the missing widow and had concluded to go on with the funeral, as it was nearly time to close the cemetery gates.
The casket was over the open grave when the gathered mourners were suddenly enveloped in a shower of dust. When it cleared away Widow Doyle was among them. She threw a handful of earth on the lowered casket and then explained the trouble.
DRIVER FLANNIGAN DISCHARGED.
Widow Doyle called at the livery stable on the following day, and as a result of her visit Flannigan was discharged.
At this point it should be stated, on the authority of Quinn, of Flatbush, Flannigan got his first opportunity to utilize his collegiate education.
Having noted that Widow Doyle was young and handsome, and being young and handsome himself, he decided to ask her to intercede in his behalf. With this idea in view Flannigan called upon the widow. His eloquent language, Quinn says, impressed her and she granted his request. As a result he got his old job back.
The action of the story quickens here. The acquaintance between the Widow Doyle and Flannigan ripened, and on July 28 they were married. The funeral occurred on June 23.
Upon the death of Doyle his widow came in possession of something like $25,000, Quinn says. So it isn’t strange that Flannigan gave up his job as hostler when Widow Doyle became his wife. They went to live in a cosy little flat in Second avenue, and Flannigan then secured a place in a mercantile house easily enough.
They have since broken up housekeeping, stored their furniture and gone to the World’s Fair. At least that is what Quinn, of Flatbush, says.
If you want Quinn to tell the story in his own inimitable way you will find him at No. 194A Ninth street, South Brooklyn.
New York [NY] Herald 21 August 1893: p. 5
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Well, really. Where was the undertaker in charge of the Doyle funeral, Mrs Daffodil would like to know? He should have been there directing the order of the funeral carriages and making everything run as smoothly as a casket on casters. Flannigan, in losing his job, was more to be pitied than censured. Still, since one so rarely finds such a happy ending in the wake of a death and the loss of a position, Mrs Daffodil will have to stretch a point and suggest that the negligence of the undertaker was a blessing in disguise.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Two stories are told quite seriously by a contributor to London ‘Truth, which it is difficult to accept at face value. The first relates a system of funeral drill to which a wife in the shires declares she has been subjected. She writes:
“Sir,—Some months ago I married ___, who is a well-known but eccentric man. After the honeymoon we retired to his estate, when began the annoyance of which I complain.
Every Wednesday a hearse and several mourning coaches are driven up to the front door, and mutes carry down from my husband’s bedroom a coffin which is supposed to contain his remains!
Draped in widow’s weeds, and accompanied by several of the servants, I have to follow this, my husband marshalling the procession, and directing the proceedings generally!
‘Be careful; do not ram the rails,’
‘Bend your head more reverently, dear,’
‘Slower, please,’
‘Keep your distances; it looks so slip-shod.’
The coffin is raised into the hearse, and I and several of the householders occupy the coaches, whilst the gardeners and others follow on foot, my husband drilling us until the funeral service is completed, even to the lowering of the coffin into the grave!
I can scarcely hope that this letter will not be intercepted, but should it reach you, will you publish it, that your readers may know to what length a man will go in indulging his peculiarities?”
Mataura [NZ] Ensign, 26 February 1912: p. 7
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: That gentleman’s eccentricities were not as singular as one might think. The Divine Sarah was celebrated for allegedly sleeping in her coffin, or, at the very least, posing for photographs in it:
Sarah Bernhardt posing in her coffin.
A certain lady who is not over-religious, in the usual acceptation of the term—Madame Sarah Bernhardt—has her whole life toned and seasoned and solemnised by the presence of the grim, even if dainty, case in which her mortal remains are to be interred. She has got a new coffin to replace the old one, which some time ago, along with her other personal effects, was seized by her relentless creditors. The present coffin is daintily lined with blue silk, and at the head has a soft little pillow trimmed with Valenciennes lace. It is Sarah’s grim humour to sleep in her coffin sometimes; and, to be quite consistent, she dresses herself in something not unlike a shroud. But usance dulls the edge of appetite, and this funeral fad of the Divine Sarah has a tendency to make the coffin a joke and the grave a jest.
Roses and Rue: Being Random Notes and Sketches, William Stewart Ross, London: W. Stewart & Company, 1890: p. 168
Returning to Mr Funeral Drill’s eccentricities, “peculiarities” is perhaps the kindest euphemism for such tastes. The lady’s statement about the note being intercepted suggests alarming and sinister possibilities. If this were a Gothic Novel written by a lady with three names, our heroine would be a great heiress, wooed in a whirlwind courtship and married before she could discover her husband’s morbid fancies. Then, one day, the funeral drill would go on without her and the coffin would be buried, the lady’s absence explained by an indisposition which would shortly lead to a permanent residence in the South of France for her health, despite no one seeing her en route. Her tragically early death in France would be announced and shortly thereafter Mr Funeral Drill would remarry….
Mrs Daffodil suggests that after the first few repetitions of this macabre ritual, the lady should have taken steps to ensure that the next funeral was no drill, but the genuine article.
For more on Victorian funerals and mourning, please consult The Victorian Book of the Dead by Chris Woodyard, also available in a Kindle edition.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Everybody on the West Side knows Barney Sullivan. He drives a hearse for a Madison street undertaker. He wears a fuzzy old plug hat and a monkey-fur cape. Barney also takes great pride in his whiskers. They are of a pleasing though rather tyrannical red, and exude only from his chin.
Not long ago Barney met the Widow McGraw, whose husband was killed last summer in the Burlington yards. It was at a wake that Barney became acquainted with the Widow McGraw. Barney was invited to call, which he did, and on leaving it was arranged that they should go buggy-riding Sunday afternoon if the day was fine.
Barney forgot all about engaging a rig until 10 o’clock yesterday morning. He went to several stables on the west side, but could not hire a horse for love or money. There wasn’t a horse or buggy to be had in all Chicago. As a last resort he hitched up a team of cream-colored horses to a white hearse and started for Prairie avenue. In front of where the widow is employed he turned in so close that the wheels of the hearse scraped against the curbstone.
People in the neighborhood went out on the front steps to inquire who was dead. Presently Barney and the widow came out of the house and mounted the driver’s box. They drove in impressive dignity down Drexel boulevard, and then turned the heads of the cream-colored horses toward Jackson Park. Thousands of persons saw the strange vehicle circling around the park, but they didn’t know what to make of it. Barney and the widow paid no attention to the caustic comments made upon them from time to time. They enjoyed the drive as well as they would have done in a landau.
For on the way home it was all planned that the Widow McGraw will soon change her name to Sullivan.
Philadelphia [PA] Inquirer 22 March 1891: p. 9
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil wishes the couple joy, but to be punctilious about a point of etiquette, a white hearse, while no doubt a lovely spectacle, is meant only for the youthful and the previously unmarried, which the Widow McGraw emphatically was not.
There was also a popular superstition that to see a hearse or mourning-coach on one’s wedding day was an ill-omen for the marriage. Mr Sullivan is fortunate that the lady of his choice not only did not recoil in horror at his choice of vehicle, but took pleasure in the ride and the company, despite the circumstances, hinting at a character of rare flexibility and amiability, and suggesting that their home life will be a happy one.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
NOTE: I have left the capitalization, spacing, and spelling as they were printed.
The Complete Business Equipped In Its Entirety
THAT IS THE
A.N. Johnson Undertaking Co.
THERE IS NO FUNERAL DIRECTORY THE ENTIRE COUNTRY SO WELL EQUIPPED TO TAKE CARE OF FUNERALS AS THAT OF A. JOHNSON. NOT MAKESHIFT, SO-CALL-ESTABLISHMENT WITH JUST ENOUGH OF EQUIPMENT TO THE TRADE OF UNDERTAKING, DEPENDING UPON LIVERYMEN, EXPRESSMEN AND HACKMEN TO MAKE UP FUNERAL, BUT UNDER ONE ROOF EVERYTHING DESIRED AND NECESSARY FOR COMPLETE FUNERAL.
ONLY UNDERTAKER WITH DOUBLE SERVICE
Our Horse
SERVICE HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE BEST, SO CONCEDED BY THE ENTIRE PEOPLE OF NASHVILLE. THE ONLY UNDERTAKER WHO OWNS SNOW WHITE PINK SKINNED ARABIAN HORSES, BEAUTIFUL, GENTLE AND WELL BEHAVED. THESE MAGNIFICENT STEEDS COST THE PUBLIC NO MORE THAN THE VARIOUS VAREGATED AND OFF COLORED HORSES WHICH ARE FURNISHED IN COMPLETION. THERE ISN’T EVEN A CHILD IN NASHVILLE BUT WHO KNOWS JOHNSON’S BEAUTIFUL HORSES WHEN HE SEES THEM.
Ambulance Service
THE ONLY UNDERTAKER WHO HAS EVER EMPLOYED AMBULANCE SERVICE FOR COLORED PEOPLE. WE DO NOT USE THE SAME VEHICLE FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONVEYANCE ALTOGETHER. OUR AMBULANCE PROTECTS THE PATIENT NOT ONLY FROM THE COLD IN THE REAR BUT THE PATINET IS IN AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT APARTMENT FROM THE DRIVERS IN THE FRONT.
Funeral Cars THE LARGEST NUMBER, MOST ELEGANT AND VARID ASSORTMENT OF ANY UNDERTAKER ANYWHERE.
Child’s Funeral Car.
THE ONLY UNDERTAKER WHO FURNISHES A SMALL WHITE SILVER MOUNTED FUNERAL CAR FOR CHILDREN; DRAWN BL SMALL SNOW WHITE PINK SKINNED HORSES, AND THE ONLY UNDERTAKER PREPARED TO GIVE YOU A CHILD’S FUNERAL.
Black Funeral Car
UDOUBTEDLY THE MOST HANDSOME AND ELEGANT, PIECE OF ARCHITECTURE CARVED EBONY IN THE CITY.
White Funeral Car
WE HAVE THE TWO MOST BEAUTIFUL SNOW WHITE FUNERAL CARS MADE; SO THAT IN ANY EMERGENCY WE ARE PREPARED WITH A SUFFICIENCY TO ACCOMMODATE THE PUBLIC.
Royal Purple Funeral
THE ONLY UNDERTAKER ANY WHERE WHO FURNISHES A ROYAL PURPLE FUNERAL CAR, NOT A WHITE OR BLACK HEARSE WITH PURPLE CURTAINS, BUT THE HANDSOMEST WOOD CARVED DRAPED PURPLE CAR THROUGHOUT THAT HAS EVER BEEN MADE, SPECIALLY BUILT FOR US.
Automobile Service Employed
THE A. N. JOHNSON CO., WERE THE FIRST TO INSTALL AUTOMOBILE SERVICE IN NASHVILLE. NOT A MAKE SHIFT SERVICE JUST TO “GET BY,” CALL IT AUTO SERVICE, WHEN IT IS A TRUCK, TEN LIZZIE SERVICE. We COULD HAVE GOTTEN ANY OF THE WELL KNOWN TRUCK, DAILY SEEN IN DELIVERING MILK, GROCERIES AND FREIGHT ABOUT THE CITY AND ALTERED, REMODELLED AND CHANGED THE BODY TO CARRY THE DEAD, BUT WE NEVER DID BELIEVE IN MAKE SHIFTS TO SERVE TO OUR PEOPLE WE COULD HAVE BOUBHT A HALF DOZEN “FLIVVERS” FOR THE PRICE OF ONE OF OUR MACHINES, BUT WE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN CHEAP THINGS FOR OUR PEOPLE. OUR AUTOMOBILE SERVICE CONSISTS OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, ELEGANT, HANDSOME AND APPROPRIATE FUNERAL CARS, LEMOZINES, SEDANS, AND TOURING CARS MADE. MC-FARLAN, CHANDLER, STUDEBAKER, PACKARD AND WINTON SIX MODELS. JUST THE VERY BEST THAT GENUIS, TALENT EXPERIENCE AND CAPITAL HAVE PRODUCED. THEN THIS OUTFIT DOESN’T COST ONE CENT MORE THAN THE CHANGED TRUCK AND TIN LIZZIE SERVICE. WE SIMPLY CAN’T HELP GETTING THE HELP AND WE DESERVE THE SUPPORT OF THE PEO—
Conducting Funerals.
In times of funerals, when the family is destressed and the people come in crowds, then there is needed a “Directing Genuis” possibly the intermate friends called to serve as pall bearers have never before performed such services, the society has ceremonies, others occupy their space at the church and in part, there are hundreds of things arising from time to time which need attention and you need a man quick, accurate, alert, sane and with executive ability to act for you. You don’t want balks and blunders when you have funerals, and you don’t have them when you have A. N. Johnson. That’s why you hear people say they want A. N. Johnson for their undertaker. They know he knows how to care for the body, how to care for the distressed family, how to take care of and seat the most people and have quietude and not confusion. The entire atmosphere and the moral of the people is different when Johnson serves.
Embalming
A. N. Johnson has the education and the experience in embalming. From the beginning of the modern methods, more than a quarter of a century ago, he was one of the leading and has kept abreast of the time in the science, art and every technique of embalming. He employs all the methods and materials suited to the particular case under treatment and the result is universal satisfaction. Much of the burden of grief is passed when your loved ones are restored to that beautiful appearance and expression that they wore when their loving smiles greeted you. Then it is safe and sanitary. You get the service of the master, the expert, the man who knows embalming when A. N. Johnson does it.
We Have the Apartments
The morgue is one of the essentials of embalming. If the surgeon can give you the best results by taking the patient to a well equipped hospital, just so can the embalmer employ his morgue when he has every facility for scientific embalming. Embalming has become almost universal, while it was rarely done in years agone. So has the morgue come into use. When allowed, we remove the remains to our morgue which is equipped with every appliance and facility for preparing the dead. Embalming at the home when preferred, but we have every facility for the removal of the dead to our morgue and with our well opportioned Chapel we have the opportunity of serving our people as well as the finest undertaker in the largest cities of the world.
We Are Not Jobbers
We have the most complete line of Caskets, Coffins, Robes and Funeral Furnishings to be had in our own place of business. We buy from the best manufacturers throughout the entire country. We buy the best that each makes and do not keep a sample or two and have to order a coffin whenever we have a call. You can get the plainest wood Coffin or the most costly Metallic Casket made, right out of our house. There is nothing created that is good, desirable or elegant but that we keep it in our place of business.
PRICES
This is a vital question in our business. We charge no more for carriages and horses than the others. Our auto carriages or limousines are furnished at the same price to our people as are charged for horses, if the ride in carriages. Because our Cortege is the finest it is sometimes inferred wrongly that our prices are higher. It is not so. Whatever we sell it is bought for cash and at the best price and we limit our profit to the most reasonable rate and you pay less for what you get from us for better service and material. In fact, you select what you want at the price you want to pay as shown to you when you need our services.
Come and visit our place, see how well we are prepared to furnish funeral service. When you need a carriage or an auto, call us up or come and see us.
“1855, March 28.—The following story was told me by Lady S., who heard it from Mr. M., a gentleman of considerable note, and one not at all given to romancing:—
“Mr. M., a well-known lawyer, went to stay with Mr.T., in the county of ___. In the course of their first evening together, Mr. M. learned that, among his host’s neighbours, was an old friend of his own, for whom he had great regard; but of whom he had lost sight since college days. The next morning Mr. M asked the gentleman of the house if he would forgive him if he walked over to see his old friend; adding a request that if he were asked to dinner, he might be allowed to accept the invitation.
“On being assured that he might do whatever was most agreeable to himself, he went to make his call—not on foot, as he had proposed, but in his friend’s dog-cart. As he anticipated, the gentleman he went to see insisted on his staying to dinner. He consented, and sent the groom back with the dog-cart, with a message to his master to say that, as it would be a fine moonlight night, he should prefer walking home. After having passed a very agreeable day with the old fellow-collegian, he bade him good-bye; and, fortified with a couple of cigars, sallied forth on his return. On his way he had to pass through the pleasant town of ___, and on coming to the church in the main street, he leaned against the iron railings of the churchyard while he struck a match and lighted his second cigar. At that moment the church clock began to strike. As he had left his watch behind him, and did not feel certain whether it were ten o’clock or eleven, he stayed to count, and to his amazement found it twelve. He was about to hurry on, and make up for lost time, when his curiosity was pricked, and the stillness of the night broken, by the sound of carriage wheels on the road, moving at a snail’s pace, and coming up the side street directly facing the spot where he was standing. The carriage proved to be a mourning-coach, which, on turning at right angles out of the street in which Mr. M. first saw it, pulled up at the door of a large red brick house. Not being used to see mourning-coaches out at such an unusual hour, and wondering to see this one returning at such a funereal pace, he thought he would stay and observe what happened. The instant the coach drew up at the house, the carriage door opened, then the street door, and then a tall man, deadly pale, in a suit of sables, descended the carriage steps, and walked into the house. The coach drove on, and Mr. M. resumed his walk. On reaching his quarters, he found the whole household in bed, with the exception of the servant, who had received orders to stay up for him.
“The next morning, at breakfast, after he had given the host and hostess an account of his doings on the previous day, he turned to the husband and asked him the name of the person who lived in the large red brick house directly opposite the churchyard. ‘Who lives in it?’ ‘Mr. P., the lawyer!’ ‘Do you know him?’ ‘Yes; but not at all intimately. We usually exchange visits of ceremony about once a year, I think.’
“Mr. M.: ‘Does any one live with him? Is he married?’ “Answer: ‘No. Two maiden sisters live with him. He is a bachelor, and likely to remain one; for, poor fellow, he is a sad invalid. If I am not mistaken, he is abroad at this moment, on account of his health.’
“Mr. M. then mentioned his motive for asking these questions. When he had told of his adventure, he proposed that, after lunch, they should drive to and call on the ladies, and see if, by their help, they could not unravel the mystery. Full of their object, they paid their visit, and after the usual interchange of commonplace platitudes, the sisters were asked if they had heard lately of their brother. They said, ‘No; not for weeks: and felt rather uneasy in consequence.’
Mr. M. surprised at not seeing them in mourning, asked them if they had not lately sustained a great loss. ‘No,’ they replied: ‘why do you ask such a question?’ ‘Oh,’ said Mr. M. ‘because of the mourning-coach I saw, with some gentleman of this family in it, returning from a funeral so late last night.’ ‘I think, Sir,’ said one of the ladies, ‘ you must have mistaken this house for some other.’ He shook his head confidently. At their request, he then told them what had happened. They said it was impossible that their street door could have been opened at that hour, for that every servant, as well as themselves, were in bed. The more the subject was canvassed, the farther they seemed from arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. The ladies, rather nettled at the obstinacy of his assertions, examined the servants, individually and collectively, but with no better result. Mr. M. and his host eventually withdrew. On their drive home, Mr. M.’s friend quizzed him, and reminded him that when he saw the apparition he had dined, and dined late, and had sat long over his friend’s old port. But Mr. M., though he submitted to the badinage good-humouredly, remained ‘of the same opinion still.’
“A week after, when Mr. M. was in his chambers in London, his friend from the country burst in upon him, and said, ‘I know you are much engaged, but I could not resist running in to tell you that the two ladies we called on last week, three or four days after our visit received a letter, telling them that their brother, “a tall, pale man,” had died at Malta, at twelve o’clock on the very night you saw the mourning-coach and the person in it at their door.’”
The Spiritual Magazine 1 October 1871
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: While Mrs Daffodil finds that the ghostly tale delivers a delightful frisson (and plans to tell it at the next All Hallow’s festivities, where it will frighten the Tweeny out of her wits…) , she is pursing her lips dubiously over the many breaches of etiquette found in this narrative. Mr. M. deserves reproach for entering a stranger’s house and posing such a delicate question, despite paving the way with conventional platitudes. His host is equally in the wrong for introducing him to the household simply in order to gratify a morbid curiosity.
The dead man is also to be censured. He might have panicked the household by his unexpected appearance so late at night. At the very least he should have sent a telegram notifying his sisters of his arrival. One might also point out that the tall, pale gentleman properly belonged in a hearse, not in a funeral carriage, which is reserved for conveying legitimate mourners to and from the funeral and churchyard. Mrs Daffodil will reserve judgement on the dead man’s attire. It is a nice point of etiquette as to whether the corpse himself should don “sables” for his own demise.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
It’s “Bad Poetry Day,” a time to celebrate the very best of bad doggerel. I have to admit that I find a guilty pleasure in really bad poetry, particularly on mortuary subjects. Here are a few favorites.
THE UNION FOREVER
It seems that people differ
On the subject, very grave,
Of how to tend their bodies
When they’ve flunked their last close shave.
But as far as I’m affected
When I go to meet my Maker,
I’ll be happy and contented
With a union undertaker.
Some people speak of burning
So they’ll beat the Devil to it—
While others hold that later
They may need themselves and rue it;
But as far as I’m affected
When I go to meet my Maker,
I’ll be happy and contented
With a union undertaker.
Some people want a Parson,
While some others want a Priest.
Some players want no gallery,
While others want a feast—
But as far as I’m affected
When I go to meet my Maker,
I’ll be happy and contented
With a union undertaker.
I want a union label
On the lapel of my shroud;
I want the coffin union-made,
And no scabs in the crowd.
I want my union card to show
Saint Peter’s ticket taker
That I was sent to Glory
By a union undertaker.
St. Louis [MO] Post-Dispatch 12 April 1919: p. 10
This one just rollicks along when read aloud:
THE UNIQUE HOTEL.
(See Murray’s Scotland,” page 169).
My friends and my relatives know very well
I yearn for the novel and striking— Just now there’s the strangest north-country hotel
Evoking my rapturous liking. The notice (in language sufficiently terse)
Recording its varied resources, Concludes with, “good stables. Superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses!”
The wines may be bad and civility nil,
The furniture aged and fluffy, Wax candles appear twice-a-day in the bill,
And all may be gloomy and stuffy. Such minor discomforts let cavillers curse;—
Eclipsing the painfullest courses, You’ve but to recall that “superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses.”
Suppose, as by rail you’re approaching the spot,
Your train will persist in colliding
Along with another and “getting it hot,”
Or smashing to bits in a siding; Though sadly your friends may regard your reverse,
While shedding the tear it enforces, At least they can get a “superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses.”
Suppose you are spending a holiday there
With hopes of lost vigour regaining By climbing up mountains and breathing the air,
And find it incessantly raining; As daily the weather grows dismally worse,
And hope from your bosom divorces, You’ll guess why they keep a “superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses.”
Suppose, when they give you your “little account,”
Where They Come From and the Various Buyers Found for Them.
The hearse is a long lived vehicle. Even though put to constant daily use on paved city streets a hearse will last fifty years. It is built of good materials to begin with, and is always carefully driven and handled.
In the course of time, what with constant exposure to all sorts of weather and with repeated washings, the springs will rust and the wood decay, and there comes at last a time when the hearse is practically worn out. That doesn’t mean that the days of the old hearses are over; very rarely is it so worn out that it must be broken up. The old hearse is sold to a hearse builder or to a carriage and hearse builder, who may take it, making some allowance for it, in part payment for a new hearse; and then this purchaser may sell it again just as it is to somebody who can still get some use out of it, though commonly he repairs and refits it first, or perhaps almost entirely rebuilds it and then puts it on sale.
So just as there are second hand pianos, second hand steam boilers, second hand almost everything on earth, there are also second hand hearses.
An undertaker may go out of business and his stock be sold at auction. At such a sale only undertakers or dealers in hearses would be likely to bid, and here hearses in good or fairly good shape might be bought at a low price. If bought by a builder and dealer in hearses they would be repaired and put in order and sold as second hand.
Styles change in hearses just as they do in all things else and the city undertaker may want a new hearse of the latest design and most modern equipment, in which case he would turn in his old hearse though it may still be a perfectly good vehicle and buy a new hearse.
While it is common the city undertaker how wants the most modern thing in hearses it might be that the undertaker in some smaller, but thriving place might come to have the same desire. In such a town there might set up in business a new undertaker, with a complete modern equipment, including a modern hearse. To compete with the newcomer the old undertaker might buy a new hearse and give the old in part payment.
So the hearses sold as second hand come from various sources and some of them may be still very good hearses, though perhaps old fashioned. The builder or dealer who had bought such a hearse might take off its roof and put on a new covering, thus completely changing its appearance, modernizing it, and upon any of those hearses he would expend in repairs, refitting and reconstruction whatever amount its condition might warrant. Some second hand hearses are sold very cheap, but a thoroughly good second hand hearse brought into first class condition might bring half as much as a new hearse of the same class.
Second hand hearses are sold, mostly in the country, to undertakers in smaller communities whose use they serve well and once such hearses were sold from here over a wide part of the country. Years ago there was sold in New York a second hand hearse to go to the Indian reservation in Oklahoma Territory. In these days there are in the West big manufacturing establishments turning out hearses as well as other vehicles, and those establishments now supply hearses both new and second hand, in the various regions within their respective natural shipping distances, so that the business in second hand hearses from here is now confined largely to a region within a few hundred miles of the city.
There are sold numbers of second hand hearses for export. New hearses of American construction go to various foreign lands and so do second hand hearses. For export the second hand hearses are not only repaired and put in order, but they are refitted and in every way equipped to meet the requirements of the funeral customs of the countries to which they are sent. Such second hand as well as new hearses of American manufacture are sold in Central America, the West Indies, South America and South Africa.
A new hearse of very elaborate construction and with expensive fittings might cost $5,000. The great majority of the hearses seen in this city cost new from $1,200 to $3,000 each.
It is estimated that there are in use in New York city about six hundred hearses whose total value would probably approximate a million dollars.
The Sun [New York NY] 2 May 1909: p. 34
Advertisement in The St. Louis [MO] Post-Dispatch 29 June 1883: p. 6
BUY SECOND HAND HEARSES
There is one kind of vehicle that appreciates in value more than an automobile and that is a second hand hearse. Kent & Smith’s stable which is selling surplus goods sold a hearse yesterday to Eben C. Getchell for $15, which cost new between $300 and $400, and sold another of a later model to W. Perkins for $50 that when new cost $1500. The $15 hearse is of ancient vintage having been owned by Messrs. Putney & Welch when in the livery business. Horse drawn hearses are now out of style except in the winter time when it is impossible to make the trips to the cemeteries by automobiles, the motor hearse now taking the place of the ordinary wheeled variety. Friends of Eben gazed on him in astonishment yesterday as he drove the hearse behind his steed which was traveling at funeral pace in keeping with what looked like a sad occasion. His dog appeared to be the other mourner. Eben is a dealer in odds and ends and the addition of second hand hearses increases his line.
[From an article entitled, Revelations by the Queen of the Underworld, Margaret Hill, Famous “Vamp,” Who Worked in Partnership with the Aristocrats of the Criminal World Trapping Millionaires, Explains How Children Are Wickedly Turned Into Drug Slaves.]
How Drugs Are Smuggled Over the Border in Hearses
“You got a better scheme?” I inquired.
“Oh, yes, Margaret, it is much more certain, and we can handle it in bigger amounts,” George replied, and then continued: “We are bringing the stuff across now in hearses. Nobody bothers a hearse, especially if it does not travel across the border at the same place too often.
“I have got some hearses which were specially built for stowing away the dope. The big, heavy black curtains are all made double, with hundreds of little compartments, which we pack full of packages of drugs. The posts, or pillars, that hold up the top of the coach are hollowed out and the holes are made just the right size to take the small cans of opium. There are eight of these hollow posts, and we can stow away a good big bunch of opium in these eight posts in each hearse.
“The floor of the hearse has a double floor. I have got the cutest little way of getting into this double floor compartment you ever saw. You would never find it in your life. We can carry quite a load of the stuff in that compartment between the two floors of the hearse.
“Of course, when we have the hearse loaded with dope we send it across openly in the middle of the day and drive right past the custom house officers boldly, so as not to attract attention or arouse suspicion. We keep on going until dark, and then drive into a little road in the woods and meet an automobile from New York. Then we unpack the curtains and posts and compartment in the double floor and the automobile takes the stuff on to New York.
“Sometimes I get an order for a shipment of dope to a distant city–maybe Washington or St. Louis. In this case we ship the stuff in the shell of a corpse”—
“The shell of a corpse,” I interrupted; “this is a new one on me.”
“Yes, that is what we call it–the shell of a corpse,” George replied. “I thought you had heard of that. Quite a lot of us are doing it that way with long distance shipments.”
”I don’t understand,” I said.
“Well, we get hold of a dead body from the morgue or some undertaking establishment, and we have the undertaker cut a hollow cavity where the lungs and internal organs are. The head and chest and arms are not disturbed, nor the lower part of the body, of course. But in under the ribs all the way down to the hips, when hollowed out, makes quite a big cavity. The corpse is very thoroughly embalmed, and we pack the cavity full of drugs. Then the corpse is dressed with clothes, which include collar, shirt, coat, etc ”
The Tearful “Widow” Who Never Leaves the Coffin Alone
“Haven’t they ever got on to this trick?” I inquired.
“No, we are very careful. I have made it a rule to send along a woman with the corpse until the coffin has safely passed the border. We have got the nicest, quietest, most demure little lady who dresses up in widow’s weeds. She can pour out a flood of tears that would deceive the sharpest detective’s eyes in the world. We send this girl along with the coffin, and if it is transferred out of the baggage car to the platform anywhere she just trots out and sits down on the edge of the baggage truck or somewhere near, so that nobody comes around to look it over, and nobody bothers her because she looks to be such a pitiful little widow in such sorrow in her bereavement.”
“So that is what you mean by shipping drugs in ‘the shell of a corpse?” I remarked. “Well, there are novelties in the Underworld since I abandoned activities which are new to me.”
The San Francisco [CA] Examiner 18 June 1922: p. 98
A strange wedding tragedy was the subject of investigation by the Plymouth, England, coroner yesterday.
On Wednesday Mary Dicker, the wife of a laborer, set out with her husband and daughter for the church where the latter was to be married to a young man named Menhennitt. On their way the wedding party met a funeral procession, and Mrs. Dicker was so much affected by this evil omen that she trembled violently all the way to the church, and declared that some calamity was bound to follow.
In the evening the bridegroom’s father gave a wedding party, and Mrs. Dicker, who seemed by that time to have recovered form her fright and to be in the best of spirits, was asked to sing a song. She did so, while still sitting in her chair.
In the middle of the song she fell forward and it was thought that she had fainted. She was carried into an adjoining bedroom, and a doctor was sent for, but before he arrived the morning’s ill omen had been fulfilled and she was dead.
It appeared that she had suffered a good deal from heart trouble, though the symptoms had disappeared during the last 12 months. Dr. Croft Symons stated that death was due to syncope brought on by the excitement of the morning.
A verdict of “death from natural causes” was recorded.
Jackson [MI] Citizen Patriot 18 February 1904: p. 5
It was a popular superstition that seeing a hearse or a mourning coach on one’s wedding day was a deadly omen for the marriage. There was also a belief that a bride who saw a hearse on her wedding day would lose all of her children.
On a foggy morning last week…a bridal party consisting of two young women with enormous bouquets, and two very nervous looking young men, drew up in a four-wheeler at the entrance to a registry-office, situated in one of the meanest of the mean streets off Islington. Just as they were all alighting, a hearse, meandering along in the fog, collided with the cab, and for the moment the wheels became interlocked. Bridegroom, bridesmaid, and the best man were in no way disconcerted. But, alas! For the poor little bride the harmony of the day was broken. Bursting into tears she declared that nothing would induce her to get married “with a hearse for an omen.” And neither laughter, chidings, nor entreaties served to shake her resolve. Back into the cab she got, bouquet and all, and in a few minutes the very woe-begone quartet drove off. Inangahua Times, 7 April 1897: p. 4
The Islington bride sensibly postponed the festivities, while the following bride did not. A word to the wise…
BRIDE’S FATAL SUPERSTITION
Portsmouth, Eng. While a Portsmouth woman was going to church on her wedding day her taxicab overtook a funeral procession. She regarded it as an ill omen and was disposed to postpone the ceremony, but was dissuaded by friends. The bride, however, was depressed. A fortnight after she became ill and died. Wilkes-Barre [PA] Times 16 September 1920: p. 16
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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