I love this:-
From the moment that the undertaker “undertakes” the funeral arrangements, he assumes an implied professional responsibility for the safe keeping of the body. This is the origin of the now obsolete practice of posting one or more of his miserable minions on the front doorstep of the house of mourning. Assuming that expression of deep melancholy which, together with a seedy frockcoat and a time-worn “topper,” formed a part of his stock-in-trade, he mounted guard; supporting a dignified attitude by means of a crape-covered wand, which he held in his hand. Such a ludicrous sight was within living memory quite common in this country.
As we pass the dreary rows of suburban villas, now let out in unsavoury tenements–once the pride of an earlier generation–we may imagine the forlorn entrances, their knockers swathed in crape, and the now neglected doorsteps supporting the lugubrious mute. He was in fact the man in charge, representing his master. His presence produced a thrill of awesome excitement in the neighbourhood that gradually gave place to a wholesome ridicule, which finally chased the old carrion crow from the house of mourning.
Laugh as we will at the mute, he had a history and a pedigree which for longevity would put to shame the pretensions of many a noble “house.” He was a direct descendant of the Roman mime, who likewise dressed in black, but wearing a portrait mask of wax-aped the mannerisms, not only of the deceased, in whose funeral procession he walked, but of the defunct members of the family. He was selected for the particular occasion in as far as he resembled in general appearance the person he was called upon to represent. When portraying the ancestors, it was intended to convey the idea that they had materialized in order to escort their newly deceased relative to the underworld. The masks used for the purpose were carefully preserved as family heirlooms, and only publicly exhibited at funerals.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/fcod/fcod07.htm
Funeral Customs by Bertram S Puckle, 1926.
