Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Juvenile Instructor, Vol. 18: May 1, 1883
We will, for purposes of convenience of expression, con sider all the proceedings from the moment of death till the return from the interment of the corpse, as funeral services, and may, therefore, begin our account where the spirit leaves the body. The scene is always a sorrowful one, and the heart-broken sobs of the bereaved family and relatives are almost enough in the outset to discourage one from the father prosecution of an inquiry or observation into so mournful a subject.
Certain stern regulations have to be at once complied with, and if there are no relatives or near friends to attend to the necessary business, some member of the immediate family must promptly do so. The first thing to be done is to give notice of the death, at the police headquarters, where a blank form is filled out with the name, employment, age and resi dence of the deceased. This form then has to be taken to the doctor who attended the case for his signature, as an acknowledgement that death ensued from natural causes. If no doctor attended the patient in his last sickness, and none can be got afterwards who, from the appearance of the corpse and what he can hear from the family, will place his signature to this paper, a post mortem examination must be held to satisfy the. Public, and especially the police, that no unfair means had been employed. So accommodating a doctor can, however, usually be found if the family are in such financial circumstances as to be able to pay him well for his trouble. Having received his certificate, the police headquarters are again visited, and this time, all being satisfactory, the name of the deceased is stricken from the lists. From there the certificate has to be taken to those civil ofiicers who attend to the state records, that is the recording of the birth, marriage and death of every citizen in the empire.
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