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Sarah Long
Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 437
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 10:48 am: |       |
Just a quick question really. I was reading James Marsh's dissertation on Kate's funeral and I found this bit at the top interesting:-
"Mr G Hawkes, the undertaker, whom, we are told, took it upon himself, not only too provide the funeral facilities for Catharine, but also to personally meet the costs involved."
Why did he do this? Did he know Kate? I wouldn't have thought this was common practice if she was a stranger.
Sarah |
Donald Souden
Detective Sergeant
Username: Supe
Post Number: 115
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 11:22 am: | |
Sarah,
He may have been a genuinely altruistic person, but the gesture also bought him the sort of good-will publicity no amount of advertising could secure.
Don. |
Sarah Long
Inspector
Username: Sarah
Post Number: 439
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 11:24 am: | |
Forgive me if I'm being naive here but why would an undertaker need to advertise? |
Monty
Chief Inspector
Username: Monty
Post Number: 627
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 12:14 pm: | |
...Cos business is dead !
Why does any business need to advertise ?
Monty
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Kris Law
Detective Sergeant
Username: Kris
Post Number: 71
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 1:14 pm: | |
Perhaps, like many, he felt sorry for these unfortunates, who while living what most back then considered an amoral life, still didn't think they deserved an end like that.
I would imagine Kate's funeral wasn't overly opulant, and the costs would probably have been minimal. |
Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 344
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 12:52 pm: | |
In America, mortuaries advertise regularly -- both with paid media adverts and through publicity and goodwill gestures. For example, it is common for a mortuary to waive all or part of its fees when burying an infant. It is also common for funeral directors to court the goodwill of local clergymen. Burying Eddowes would have brought her undertaker a tremendous amount of very valuable publicity.
The Victorian era was an interesting period with regard to death. Death was still very common and familiar as medicine hadn't advanced yet. However, a maudlin sentimentality had developed toward death in the era that is curious -- hence the vast Victorian cemeteries with opulent monuments. Perhaps the Albert Memorial, which is not even in a cemetery, says it all. Undertakers enjoyed a lucrative trade.
One remembers the line from Dickens "A Christmas Carol" spoken by the undertaker waiting outside Marley's deathbed door:
"Ours is a highly competitive profession."
Andy S.
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