When a Funeral was Bushed –

THE UNSANITARY STATE OF COOLGARDIE
A GRUESOME SUBJECT

The Coolgardie Miner thus holds forth in a recent issue — Coolgardie has always been noted for producing a fine vigorous growth of liars. About every ten minutes we meet somebody who tells us that there were nine or fifteen or twenty who died in the Hospital last night, or that the mortality is about 50 per week. We are kept busy for 16 hours daily contradicting such yarns, A tall story- the tallest, perhaps – reached us on Saturday. It was a weird and sensational story — one of those sort of yarns that Zola could incorporate in a realistic novel, or Max Adeler make side-bursting fun of. The narrator said that ‘just down the street’ (all of these things occur ‘just down the street’) a man was supposed to have died. A certificate of death was granted and the coffin ordered and duly delivered, and the defunct fellow placed within by the living hands of the dead man’s mates and friends. But there was another friend who was wanting to see the deceased before he was finally screwed down, and the crowd went to seek for him. Him they found, and partook with him

the drop that consoleth and maketh maudlin the mourner.

About a hour Later, full of grief and whisky, they staggered back and found that the corpse had vanished! Some thought the doctors had collared the body to dissect it, and wanted to lynch the entire profession, others shook their heads and ejaculated, ‘The devil’, though there was no smell of brimstone about to justify any such remark, and at last 0ne went off to inform the police and to advertise in ‘The Miner’ —’Lost, stolen or strayed, a pale-complexioned corpse, more or less deceased,’ while the balance of the friends hunted around the neighbouring camps. In one of these, much to their surprise, they found the corpse sufficiently alive to make its will, after which, in the words of the of the classic poet.

‘He sneezed and smiled and sighed.
And then he gently died
Then blew his nose and smiled, and died again’.

Now all this gaudy yarn was poured into the ear of our new chum reporter, who tramped around all day Sunday for confirmatory intelligence and came home at last with his feet full of blisters and his mouth full of blasphemy. Unfortunately we can’t help dabbling in mortuary matters just at present, There is a sickly odour of the sepulchre permeating the atmosphere, and the chief employment of the idle is to stand around with ghoulish stories — yarns that are dank dismal and dirty, and reminiscent of dry bones, festering corpses foul whiffs from the charnel house, ghostly visions, and grisly spooks and other horrors and sometimes a ghastly joke, old as a resurrected mummy, is dug out, and illuminates the atmosphere with a halo glimmer of humour, like the glare of a corpse candle, on the livid face of the deceased.  Such is the kind of fun which is continually being prospected by diligent conversation and daily occur which go further to confirm these gruesome hallucinations in the public mind.

At a certain funeral the other day the horses would not proceed even at a funeral pace. Then finally when the party arrived at the cemetery they had to stand for two mortal hours in the sun while the grave was being dug — a portion of the ceremony heretofore neglected. Then when it was dug, it was a foot too short, and more time had to be spent while this was being rectified. Then after much tribulation the deceased was laid to rest. Worse happened at Hannan’s the other day. There is no track from that place to the local cemetery, and a funeral procession recently got bushed. They were after some time discovered, and by the aid of a compass and much argument found their way to the boneyard. Couple these yarns with some other mortuary events — which have occurred lately — such as the collaring of a man’s goods by the Curator of Intestate Estates, while his body was left to fall to pieces in the sun.

Should anyone wish to start a new paper which will meet the times and hit the public taste, he should print it on black paper with white ink, and decorate it with skulls and crossbones, and photograph views of purgatory, and call it the ‘Daily Ghoul’, or the ‘Evening Horror’, or the ‘Death Watch ‘edited by Dismal Jimmy,’ or something of the kind, which would be at once appropriate, humorous and popular!