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Do you imagine that Arruntius and Haterius, and all other professional legacy-hunters do not put up the same prayers as undertakers and grave-diggers? though the latter know not whose death it is that they wish for, while the former wish for the death of their dearest friends, from whom, on account of their intimacy, they have most hopes of inheriting a fortune.

From time to time the company halts, and while the wife addresses the sympathising public, the grave-diggers refresh the inner man with a pull at the bottle. In the open square the mimic corpse is laid on a pyre, and to the roll of drums, the shrill screams of the women, and the gruffer cries of the men a light is set to it. While the figure burns, chestnuts are thrown about among the crowd.

It is especially in the night that all these worthies, grave-diggers, flaxdressers, and ghosts, exercise their industry. It is in the night also the flaxdresser relates his lamentable stories.

The grave-diggers under the wire cover are now seven in number, of whom three are females. All have gone to earth: some are inactive, close to the surface; the rest are busy in their crypts. The presence of the fresh corpse is promptly perceived. About seven o'clock in the morning, three Necrophori hurry up, two males and a female.

I do not propose, O valiant grave-diggers, to belittle your merits; such is far from being my intention. I have that in my notes, on the other hand, which will do you more honour than the case of the gibbet and the Frog; I have gleaned, for your benefit, examples of prowess which will shed a new lustre upon your reputation. No, my intention is not to lessen your renown.

Wool-carding in Barchester there was no longer any; so the bishop, dean, and warden, who took it in turn to put in the old men, generally appointed some hangers-on of their own; worn-out gardeners, decrepit grave-diggers, or octogenarian sextons, who thankfully received a comfortable lodging and one shilling and fourpence a day, such being the stipend to which, under the will of John Hiram, they were declared to be entitled.

'He that would not render the duties of humanity, while they can succour those that are afflicted, may justly be called brutal; but, those duties being paid, what remains is more properly the business of carpenters, grave-diggers, and undertakers, than of men whose happiness is disturbed by useless but gloomy associations; and who may find better employment for their time.

European civilisation stinks of the dead-house. "Jam foetet...." Europe has called in the grave-diggers. Asia is on the watch. On June 18, 1916, at the Imperial University of Tokyo, Rabindranath Tagore, the great Hindu, spoke as follows: "The political civilisation which has sprung from the soil of Europe and is overrunning the whole world, like some prolific weed, is based upon exclusiveness.

"We kivered them, fait', will inough!" shouted the other grave-diggers. "Do ye belave, Colonel," said the dry person, again, "that thim ribals'll lave us a chance to catch them. Be me sowl! I'm jist wishin to war-rum me hands wid rifle practice." The others echoed loudly, that they were anxious to be ordered up, and some said that "Little Mac'll give 'em his big whack now."

All attempts were limited, I repeat, to shallow soundings which informed the insect of the possibility of inhumation. It is absolute nonsense to speak of their first preparing the grave to which the body will afterwards be carted. To excavate the soil, our grave-diggers must feel the weight of their dead on their backs. They work only when stimulated by the contact of its fur.