in and one further along--- have been deliberately neglected by our

descendants of to-day until there is no occupying them any longer. Aside

from the osteological discomfort of it---and that is no light matter this

rainy weather---the present state of things is ruinous to property. We

have got to move or be content to see our effects wasted away and utterly

destroyed.

"Now, you will hardly believe it, but it is true, nevertheless, that there

isn't a single coffin in good repair among all my acquaintance---now that

is an absolute fact. I do not refer to low people who come in a pine box

mounted on an express-wagon, but I am talking about your high-toned,

silver-mounted burial-case, your monumental sort, that travel under black

plumes at the head of a procession and have choice of cemetery lots

--I mean folks like the Jarvises, and the Bledsoes and Burlings, and such.

They are all about ruined. The most substantial people in our set, they

were. And now look at them--utterly used up and poverty-stricken. One

of the Bledsoes actually traded his monument to a late barkeeper for some

fresh shavings to put under his head. I tell you it speaks volumes, for

there is nothing a corpse takes so much pride in as his monument. He

loves to read the inscription. He comes after a while to believe what it

says himself, and then you may see him sitting on the fence night after

night enjoying it. Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a world

of good after he is dead, especially if he had hard luck while he was

alive. I wish they were used more. Now I don't complain, but

confidentially I DO think it was a little shabby in my descendants to

give me nothing but this old slab of a gravestone---and all the more that

245

Sketches New and Old