176 THE PARKS AND GAEDENS OP PARIS. [Chap. XII. 



there is plenty of cheap land in the environs of Paris. Let us 

 hope that whatever else may be " taken from the French," we 

 may never imitate them in their cemetery-management. 



The Americans are the only people who bury their dead 

 decently and beautifully, that is, so far as the present mode 

 of sepulture will allow them. For beauty, extent, careful 

 planting, picturesque views and keeping the garden-cemeteries 

 formed within the past generation or so near all the principal 

 American cities are a great advance upon anything of the kind in 

 Europe. They are in some cases as large as national parks, and 

 as full of trees and flowers as a choice garden. Many of the 

 larger cities have several of these beautiful large garden-like 

 cemeteries. There are half-a-dozen or more within driving 

 distance of New York. Not the least interesting or admirable 

 feature of these American cemeteries is the room allotted to each 

 family and to each grave. Each family possesses a " lot " — quite 

 a little garden — in which the graves are dotted about, and which 

 is usually neatly kept and well planted. Thus the repulsive 

 overcrowding of the European city-cemeteries does not exist in 

 America. 



The gentleman who first originated these noble American 

 cemeteries, Mr. J. Jay Smith of German town, Philadelphia, is yet 

 alive, and only a year or two ago visited London with the view 

 of founding a similar kind of cemetery here, with all recent im- 

 provements. "When in America a few years ago, I had the 

 pleasure of seeing with him some of the larger cemeteries of 

 Philadelphia, and was pleasantly surprised at their riches in trees 

 and shrubs, their vast extent, and the beautiful position occupied 

 by the West Laurel Hill Cemetery, on the slopes on both sides 

 of the noble river. This quiet, impressive resting-place for 

 the dead, which looks more like a great national garden than a 

 cemetery, is situated at such a distance from the city as to pre- 

 clude any danger of the requirement of the ground for building 

 purposes. Moreover, it is bounded on the east by the valley and 

 river of the Schuylkill, and on its northern and southern sides by 

 ravines so deep and precipitous as to insure that no engineering 

 skill will ever pierce them with roads or streets. It consists of a 

 delightfully-undulating plateau, situated on a bluff projecting into 

 the Schuylkill, thus constituting it a promontory bounded on three 



