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Show j EXTRAVAGANT FUNERALS. j Senseless Fashion Denounced by Mas- achusetts Pastor. Rev. Thomas McLaughlin, pastor of St. Thomas' church in Adams,' Mass., has on several occasions -denounced the "senseless fashion of extra vugant fu- nerals" among his parishioners, the big majority of whom are' factory employes. em-ployes. The good pastor -in -a ' recent sermon declared .that he very ' frequently fre-quently found widows with large "families "fami-lies left penniless, because the savings of years were squandered to give the head of the family a "decent burial." The Irish and the Italians are the two races, who, from a sense of racial pride, are the worst offenders in this respect, both being moved by the same impulses. im-pulses. The objection , invariably raised is made in such language as the following: "No, no. What would my neighbors say? They would accuse me of being stingy, of thinking more of a few dollars dol-lars than or my dead. No, no,, I could not think of it." Speaking from the pulpit on a recent re-cent occasion explaining the causes that ipduced him to his restriction of 'flowers at the funerals in his church, Father McLaughlin said: "In Adams, many of the older Irish residents came from one or two counties In Ireland, and to the Irishman love of country is as strong a tie as blood relationship. This claiinlsh feeling is inherited by their children and the feeling is kept up from generation to ' generation. They are a warm-hearted, impulsive people, and on the "advent of v death in a family are inclined to act first and do their thinking afterward. "The average wage of the mill oper- I ative is not large, and he is likely to have a large family and little func laid away for sickness or death. . member, of. his family dies, and i, order to give his dead as equally'. costly a burial as some other member of the parish, he contracts for a long time to come to liquidate. I find that funeral expenses are invariably paid as promptly a$ possible; but that it is the grocer, the butcher and;. the other tradespeopje who -supplv ihf jiTssitiea of life that suffer." ' t 4 |