Empty hearses followed by a throng of mourners had passed through streets crowded with sympathisers standing with bared heads.
"The Evolution of Sinn Fein"
Robert Mitchell Henry
Country gentlemen and their wives and daughters came pouring in, on every species of conveyance known since the flood; family coaches, which, but for their yellow panels, might have been mistaken for hearses, and high barouches, the "entree" to which was accomplished by a step-ladder, followed each other in what appeared a never-ending succession; and here I may note an instance of the anomalous character of the conveyances, from an incident to which I was a witness at the time.
"The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete"
Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
They even took the hearses out of an undertaker's yard and filled them with loot.
"The Soul of the War"
Philip Gibbs