Show I THIS THAT and the OTHER There Is always something Inter eating esting about a B hobby That Is wh whIt why It Is usually a hobby nut But one of the most strange strang hobbles we have ever encountered Is that of ot Dr Herbert Lockyer a atall atall tall white Englishman W We met him years ago In Kansas while he ho w was s conducting a revival a at Newton and learned of his hobby He Ito likes to poke about In dark dar corners of the local cemetery seeking for strange and unusual epitaphs and he ho has come up wil wila with witha a number of rare gems ems so many i In Intact tact fact he has published them In a book which he ho titled Epitaphs Grave and Gay In hta hll travels Dr Lockyer h hA has found that the tho greatest wealth wel n nr n such gems Jems have come from themore th the more marc ancient cemeteries of his hi nn nl five land En England land and Most of his research has hM bren brenin In n these lands where he has hits fort foun the Englishman especially In pa past centuries seems to have a more mor view of death AmrI can epitaphs do not have the same sam I dram dramatic Uc approach One of the earliest In Dr Lockyer's Lockyer's Lock yer's collection Is the one on th the e grave of the king who tossed Danel Dan Daniel I I el iel into the lions den It ids re-ids Here lies King Darius who wa was s able to drink much wine without staggering Wives are not always deeply mourn d It seems and In England was found this epitaph Here lies my wife Here let her he her lie le She's now at rest and so am I I. I Another that touches on the passing of a wife is found in a a cemetery in Sargentville Maine on a double tombstone to Elisna Philbrick and his wife Sarah Beneath these stones do lie He lieBack lieBack Back to back my wife and I When the last trum trumpet ct the tho air shall fill If she gets up Ill I'll just lie still One faithful husband had this inscribed on his wife's tombstone Here Her lies my wife Samantha Proctor She had a cold and wouldn't doctor She couldn't stay she had to go Praise God from whom all al blessings flow Dr Lockyer has placed the tombstone in the field of better entertainment with such gems as one which was erected iJ in memory of one Peter Daniels Beneath this stone a lump ol of clay Lies Uncle Peter Daniels Who too early in the month o of May Who took off his winter flannels One of the oddest in the col lection is the one telling of the departure of Our Anna Here lies the body of our Anna Done to death by a banana It wasn't the fruit that laid her herlow herlow low ow But the skin of the thc thing that made her go There is also the one in a New England cemetery which reads Here I lie lie no no wonder Tam Jm dead For a wheel of a wagon went over my head Since I was so quickly done for Why oh why was wag I begun for Some use the epitaphs to express express ex press humor at their own expense James Alberry who died in 1889 had this carved on his stone I slept beneath the moon I basked beneath the sun I lived a life of to going And died with nothing done Bad puns have blemished many manya a tombstone but one of the worst was credited to Ben Jonson Janson A widow it is said sent her serving girl irl to offer Jonson a half guinea to compose an epitaph for her husband husband hus band Jonathan Fiddle Jonson angered angered angered an an- at such a paltry fee crabbed the he coin and wrote On the third ty-third of June Jonathan Fiddle went out of t tune I i i I Tombstones have been used a ar af afa ara a medium of advertising as wat was shown on a 11 tombstone of Jared Jarec Bates who died Aug 6 1800 His widow had placed on his grave marker the following His lIis widow aged 24 lives at 7 1 Elm street has every qualification tion for a Ii good wife and yearns to be comforted Some have even used grave gray markers for spite as was found after a suitor aged 70 had failed aile to win the hand band of an old maid aged 80 BO On her tombstone he chiseled an inscription for spite May God bless Susan and all of her barren land And when she gets to Heaven leaven 1 hope she finds a man One of the most amusing was i written in memory of B Pella a Wood who died Nov 2 1837 1831 Here lies on one wood Enclosed in wood I IOne One Wood within an her I IThe The outer wood Is It very good We cannot praise the other I But there thero U Is also the one that leaves the m message aae of If death U ath th which that I all iii must mUt answer I Remember man M at thou them u pass ran ranby by A As art now so 50 once was I J As J I am now so shall thou be Therefore pr prepare pare to follow fellow me |