Parlors for Paupers

When he dies, State Legislator Girard Muccigrosso will be well able to pay the $300 or more his own funeral will cost. But it makes him uneasy that many of his constituents in The Bronx will not be able to do so. So last week at Albany he introduced a bill which, if passed, would enable New York cities to establish municipal funeral parlors such as several big European cities maintain for their indigent citizens. Decent funerals would be provided at cost price: $60. The parlor which New York City would require to embalm & bury or cremate & pack its poorer citizenry would cost $920,000.

To block any such U. S. innovation, New York City's Metropolitan Funeral Directors Association, which does 75% of the community's mortuary business, promptly counteroffered to set up "a clinic for families in need of funeral services somewhat along the lines of medical clinics." "We want," declared the Association's president, John J. Flynn, "to keep the funeral service in such cases free from suspicion of pauper stigma such as might possibly be involved if the cases had to be handled through municipal mortuaries." To "cases" recommended by clergy or social service executives, these morticians would for $85 provide the use of their parlors, personnel and equipment, a standard casket, and a grave. Graves at such a bargain price are possible, said Mr. Flynn, because many families have old ones waiting from more prosperous years, often the church donates one, and many estates have remnants of hallowed ground which heirs cannot use and therefore donate to charitable enterprises such as Mr. Flynn's proposed "clinics."

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