An individual named Greftulke, who entertained a great dread of being buried alive, added to his will this clause: “I do not wish to be buried; but desire that my body be embalmed, and placed in a coffin, the lid of which shall be glazed; also I desire it be not nailed down, so that my body may not be deprived of air and light. Ultimately it may be buried, if the law permit.”
This will was proved October, 1867, and signed John Louis Greftulke.
This testator, Thomas Hollis of Cusicombe, Dorsetshire, England, ordered his corpse to be buried in one of his cornfields, ten feet below the surface, and the ground to be immediately ploughed, so that no trace of the spot might remain.
This lady’s behests are sufficiently singular to be recorded here: “If,” she writes, “I should die away from Branksome, I desire that my remains, after being duly placed in the usual coffins (_i.e._ first a leaden and then an elm one), be enclosed in a plain deal box, and conveyed by goods train to Poole. Let no mention be made of the contents, as the conveyance will then not be charged more for than an ordinary package. From Poole station let it be brought in a cart to Branksome tower, and it will be found the easiest way to get the coffin out of the house will be to take out one of the diningroom windows.” This will was probated in 1870.
THE WILL OF THE DOWAGER COUNTESS OF SANDWICH
This will provides against those useless inventions, which only serve to aggravate the grief of the survivors, and to swell the extortionate charges of the upholsterers of death. She therefore forbids “all grotesque paraphernalia, desiring only to be buried quietly and decently, with no scarfs, hatbands, or other excuses for fraud and cheating.”
A Vienna millionnaire seemed to have a horror of darkness, for he provided that not only the vault in which his body was to be placed should be lighted by electricity, but the coffin should be similarly illumined.
This lady, whose life was full of eccentricities, seems to have been determined to signalize her departure from the world by the singularity of her testamentary dispositions.
She desired in her will, probated in 1776, that her body should be carried into the principality of Lux, situated in Basse Navarre, and about two hundred and fifty miles from Paris. So far there was nothing very extraordinary; but she also desired to be followed by a very long procession, which was to consist of six mourning-coaches draped with black, for the family and the ecclesiastics, and of two hundred persons bearing torches, who were to receive a crown a day. The cortège was to walk at a solemn pace, and not to make more than five leagues per day, and at every five leagues, or as near that distance as it was possible to find a convenient resting-place, a funeral service was to be celebrated before the procession started again, and every church where such service should be held was to be hung with black.