The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 560, August 4, 1832 by Various
page 18 of 53 (33%)
page 18 of 53 (33%)
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_The Dockyard_ of Lisbon is scarcely as extensive as many of the largest of our private ship-builders on the banks of the Thames and the Avon. _Funerals._--In Portugal the corpse is placed in an open coffin, and the head and feet are left bare. A vessel filled with holy water is placed at the foot of the bier, which the priests and relatives of the deceased sprinkle on the body. The service being concluded, the corpse is followed by the relatives down into the vaults below the church, where vinegar and quick lime having been poured upon the body, the falling lid of the coffin is closed and _locked_, and the key delivered to the chief mourner, who proceeds immediately from the funeral, with his party of friends who have witnessed the interment take place, to the house of the defunct, where the key being left with the nearest relative, and the complimentary visit being paid, the rite is considered as terminated. No fire is lighted in the house of a deceased person upon the day of his funeral, and the relatives, who live in separate houses, are in the habit of supplying a ready-dressed dinner, under the supposition that the inmates are too much absorbed in grief to be equal to giving any orders for the preparation of food. During the course of the ensuing week, the chief mourners receive their several relatives and friends at tea. The assembly is sorrowful and dull. It has been asserted, though not corroborated, that such is the poverty and disregard of decorum on the part of the Portuguese government, that when a person dies without leaving behind sufficient to defray the expenses of his funeral, the dead body is laid on the pavement of the most public street, with a box upon the breast, into which passers-by drop copper or silver coin, until sufficient has thus been obtained to defray the expense of interment; and that a soldier stands at the head of the body to see that no money is abstracted; for, in Portugal, even the sacred purpose for which it is |
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