Appendix VIII: Destruction Of Private Property on the Grave

In a remarkable work, The Religious Systems of China, published in 1892–97 by J. M. de Groot at Leyden, we find the confirmation of this idea. There was in China (as elsewhere) a time when all personal belongings of a dead person were destroyed on his tomb — his mobiliary goods, his chattels, his slaves, and even friends and vassals, and of course his widow. It required a strong reaction against this custom on behalf of the moralists to put an end to it. With the gipsies in England the custom of destroying all chattels on the grave has survived up to the present day. All the personal property of the gipsy queen who died a few years ago was destroyed on her grave. Several newspapers mentioned it at that time.