their own houses, however squalid, until the hour of burial, were the rich allowed the privilege.

The arrangements for the interment of the dead in Munich are performed by officials and women, the latter being called Leichen Frauen. The remains are conveyed in a hearse to the cemetery that belongs to the quarter in which the deceased has lived. It is not until one visits the Munich Dead house that the horror of it can be realized. The whole area (the old Southern Cemetery is here referred to) is inclosed with a brick wall several feet high, and the general plan of the cemetery itself, with its artistic arcades and imposing monuments, entitles it to the reputation it has acquired of being one of the finest in all Germany. Intersecting each other in the centre

The system is compulsory, taking in the high as well as the low, and the rich as well as the poor. Otherwise, many of the poorest people would insist upon the right to keep their dead in

are a driveway running east and west, and a broad, paved walk extending north and south. Parallel to the driveway, on the northern side, stands a long, low brick building, a part of which is occupied by the corps of directors of the cemetery. This building is all but divided by a roofed passageway connecting the northern and southern walks. On the west of the passage is a large room which serves as a temporary repository for suicides, murdered people, and those who are killed by accident. The windows of this room, which is not open to the general public, are curtained with green muslin. On the east side, the first chamber is designed for the bodies of the common people. By ascending a step or two at the entrance one can see through the wide glass door or through the adjacent windows, a spectacle sufficiently ghastly to cause any foreigner to grow faint. It is a repulsive and awful sight.

On each side of the rectangular room is ranged a row of slightly inclined biers, on which rest the cheap yellow-covered coffins containing all that is mortal of from twenty to forty human beings. The faces of the emaciated old women, with their sharp, cronelike chins and sunken eyes, their open

mouths disclosing one or two discolored teeth, are enough to sicken most spectators at a glance. And yet to many there is a grim fascination about it. Indeed the Müncheners regard going to the Deadhouse on holidays as a standard recreation, and always recommend it to visitors with a weird sort of pride. They go through life perfectly unconcerned over the prospect that some day they, too, will be taken there to lie in lowly state for three days before the clods of the grave close over them.

What a grim picture for little children to become accustomed to! The Morgue in Paris is tame beside it. What could be more grewsome to see than the sallow-visaged old men lying there, with the crucifix and, perhaps, a wreath or two of evergreen on their breasts, two candles at their heads-placed there with the conviction that these will light their spirits through the mysterious shades; and at the foot of their coffins two more burning candles and a pasteboard placard on which a number is printed in large black type? Here the mourners of their respective dead are compelled to come and give publicity to their grief. It is not unusual to see a hundred bereft friends and relatives crowd into this chamber of death and piteously weep over the remains of their lost ones. The under

takers, who bring in the bodies from the hearse and arrange them on the biers, are too well inured to their work to be impressed with the meaning and sentiment of death. If the head of the body, during its jolting journey in the hearse, has fallen into an unseemly position, the assistant raises it, twists it, pushes it a little this way or that, with an indifference that seems brutal. More than pitiful is it to see poor little dried-up old women thus treated. These feelingless men, in trying to straighten. out any dismantled article of clothing, often injure the appearance of the remains more than they improve them. The writer once saw one of these busy undertakers combing an elderly woman's hair, which had become disarranged. It was monstrously apparent that he was not acquainted

with the intricacies of her

coiffure, for he loosened a switch and was unable to readjust it.

A set of electric wires communicating with the director's office is fastened along the ceiling, from which depend cords at the ends of which are attached metal rings that are placed on the finger of every corpse to report anyone who might chance to have any life. It is related, upon authority not traceable, that years ago a Munich butcher came out of a trance in the middle of the night and found himself in the Deadhouse. The shock this discovery gave him is said to have entirely shattered his nerves and though still alive, he is a mental wreck. It is safe to presume that a more sensitive being would actually have died from fright under like circumstances.

Perhaps the most pathetic sight of all is that of the dozen or more infants lying in a position upon the biers so evidently insecure as to suggest the terrible probability that they will roll off on to the hard floor. They are decked in flimsy

THE BURG THOR, LUBECK.

filigree fabrics, reminding me of nothing so much as the cut tissue paper ornaments sometimes seen in provincial drug stores in this country.

Further along to the eastward is another chamber devoted to the wealthy and aristocratic. This class lies in tastefully arranged bowers, and many of the corpses look peaceful, as though not only had their spirits departed with their mortal consent, but as though loving hands had done their best to render them presentable before intrusting them to the care of the state. Not infrequently the cold form of a general or a military man of high rank, dressed in his uniform, with his medals pinned on his coat and his trusty sword and crucifix in his clasped hands, may be seen in this apartment, which is more spacious than the other two mentioned.

66

I witnessed a touching incident one day while on one of my visits to the Southern Dead house in Munich. Two Americans, a brother and sister, came to the cemetery in a carriage to view the remains of an aunt with whom they had been doing" the Continent, and who had died at the Four Seasons Hotel the day before. Entering the passageway and turning to the right, after quitting their carriage, the two proceeded to the entrance of the death chamber, beside which stood a stoical official. In a few words addressed in German the young man communicated the object of his and his sister's visit.

The odor of the disinfectants seemed to make her faint before she lifted her downcast eyes to see what an instant later congealed her blood. "Is this the Leichen-Haus ?" she asked. 66 Oh, Henry, see those little babies!"

She turned away her face and leaned upon her brother's arm, breathing nervously.

"Let us go back to the hotel," urged the young man. "You are not strong enough to bear this. We will come to-morrow."

"I am strong enough," she answered, looking for the first time around the chamber. It seemed difficult for her to command herself; taking his hand, however, she glanced quickly on either side of the aisle, and said: "Come, the number is 16."

They advanced together a few steps in silence, when the young woman suddenly ejaculated, throwing up her hands: "There !-there she is, Henry!"

She again averted her face, and made a movement as if to find protection and consolation in his arms, but, with a masterly effort, walked straight up to the coffin wherein her aunt was lying dead.

Here she broke down, and began to weep violently.

At length her brother succeeded in leading her back to the carriage. As they were going out I overheard her say: "Let us leave Munich as

Whereupon he opened the door for them to

enter.

"What did he say-No. 16 ?" asked the young girl, clinging desperately to her brother's arm as they stepped into the room.

Making inquiries, I learned from the proprietor of the hotel where they stopped that the young man and his sister left for America immediately after the burial of her aunt.

66

DRESS is, as an eloquent American preacher declared, one of the very commonest things of this life," but only on that account to be the more greatly esteemed. It meets us at every turn, and is ofttimes still, as in the opinion of Ben Jonson, "the birdlime of fools." But it is yet equally true, in the words of another old writer, that "dress has a moral effect upon the conduct of mankind," and fashion is, as it always has been and will be, something more than a matter of millinery. It is undeniable, however, that the binding power of custom is losing its hold

upon costume. The great church festivals are ceasing to be marked by new clothes; we have even had a bishop protesting against confirmation finery. Courts and corporations steadily hold fast to ancient usage, and legal costumes, legal language, and, for that matter, the law's delays also, are all carefully kept in continuance. The black cap and white gloves still mark circumstances in crime which are "wide as the poles asunder," and charity clothing is, all too often yet, made the badge of poverty, although such liveries, in common with most official uniforms,

are far less distinctive than they used to be. In these respects traditions and associations of dress are maintained, although shorn sadly of their former state; and, as we may find national costumes still worn in remoter corners of the Continent, as well as in nearer districts, too, where railways, tramways and other ways have not been introduced, so in some parts of our own land dress charms may be found still practiced, and men everywhere, for a poor consolation, rejoice in retaining the two buttons at the back of their coats which once either kept up a sword belt or fastened back flapping skirts when riding. But within memory the snowy mutch of the North, the steeple hat of Wales, the scarlet cloak and gathered smock which were once as distinctively local in Ireland and England as the golden helmet of Holland, and the velvet bodice of the Tyrol, have all disappeared. In two other essential particulars, both touching interests not local, but universal, there is departure from long-accepted practice. The bride's veil, once as essential to the occasion as the imperative ring or necessary parson, is often dispensed with; and mourning, a still more ancient and far more general outlet of feeling, is being greatly moderated. In the one instance there is a concession to a natural inclination to display, on occasions which, in spite of statistics and recess correspondence as to whether marriage is a failure, are generally considered happy and joyous; but the reform of mourning is much more significant. It is only commonplace selfishness in marriageable men that is required to account for a startling decline in the marriage rate, but it is sturdy and sound common sense that interferes to check emulation and rivalry in coaches and clothes and all the paraphernalia of sorrow. Change in this respect was advocated long before our day. The Fathers protested strongly against funeral indulgence, and the Quakers have not only preached but practiced simplicity in everything relating to burial; but successful interference with a custom as old as human nature, and practiced all the world over, is remarkable indeed in point of change, and no less in proof of how costume for classes, and in customs, has lost ground. Funeral and mourning reform associations might have worked their utmost in endeavoring to move public opinion, but all in vain, if alteration in habits and apparel had not already set in.

With all this we are losing touch of the romance of dress. Saving some discoveries of smuggling, most frequently in dress improvers, and a political storm about prison clothing, there are, for us, no episodes in raiment. There is, it is true, always something romantic in dress, if

looked at aright. It was told of the Emperor Augustus Cæsar that he was so much afraid of thunder and lightning that he ever carried about with him for a preservative remedy a seale's skinne"; and, although our idea of the protection afforded by sealskin has come to be quite a different character, we might see in the lustrous sack or jacket, not dangers escaped, but fearlessly encountered for fashion's sake. If it is true, too, that "the history of a single manufactured article, passing from hand to hand, in various stages from the raw material, with contributions of brain, ingenuity, character and physical effort, is like the history of a people," how much more so does the dress of woman reflect still further the arts and industries and culture of a nation, and proclaim the empire of mind? For all that, dress is now almost wholly looked at from the level of buying and bargains. There is not even much charm about fashions when they are furnished with monotonous regularity month by month, instead of being brought in as opportunity offered in the shape of a little ready-dressed doll-or baby, as dolls used to be called, and so used sometimes as a sign at a milliner's door. These babies make quite a figure in dress history; and may well do, when we learn that the cabinets of Versailles and St. James together gave safe passage to a "little mademoiselle " arrayed in the latest French fashion, diplomatic protection of such elaborate precaution being necessary because England and France were at the time engaged in one of their regular quarrels. Ships might grapple and become so many floating slaughterhouses, and national hatred might flourish, but "little mademoiselle" passed through battle and passion unharmed. The moralist might find in this incident a fine and fruitful text, especially in view of the fact that Bibles at an earlier date had to be conveyed across seas by stealth under cover of bales of foreign stuff and other merchandise. There was another occasion, too, when London was for the moment making merry after the marriage of Mary with Philip of Spain. But one of the pictures in a pageant was of Henry VIII., and in his hand a book inscribed "Verbum Dei." This caught the watchful eye of Gardner, who ordered that a pair of gloves should be painted in instead; and this incident, again, might serve to teach a useful lesson. In another light, such little events as these make the study of costume very interesting, more so than the records of our time are likely to prove in the future. There is the account of Admiral Seymour on the eve of his execution writing letters - pathetic enough, no doubt-to Elizabeth and her sister with the point of an aglet, or tag of a lace, which