PARK AND CEMETERY. 
83 
OHIO ASSOCIATION TO MEET 
The annual meeting of the Ohio As- 
sociation of Cemetery Superintendents 
and Officials will be held at Cincinna- 
ti June 19 and 20, with headquarters 
at the Hotel Emery. The executive 
committee, composed of E. A. Sloan, 
Tronton, W. H. H. Montgomery, 
Portsmouth, and William Salway, Cin- 
cinnati, has prepared an excellent pro- 
gram, which with the opportunity of 
inspecting beautiful Spring Grove 
should bring out a full attendance. 
Members are urged to stop at the 
Hotel Emery where accommodations 
can be had for $1.00 to $2.50 a day, 
with a good restaurant in connection. 
The program is as follows; 
Wednesday, June 19, 10 A. M. 
Prayer. 
Welcome Address ... Mayor Dempsey 
Response J. J. Stephens 
President’s Address. 
Report of Secretary. 
Roll Call. 
Communications. 
Secretary’s Half Hour — Receiving 
Fees and Due's. 
Application and Reception of New 
Merftbers. 
Paper — ‘Why?” C. W. Modie 
Discussion of Mr. Modie’s Paper. 
Evening Session, 8 p. m. 
Paper — ‘‘Modernizing Old Rural 
Cemeteries”. . .Dr. R. B. Woodward 
Right to Inter Dog 
Judge Shackleford Miller, of the 
Circuit Court at Louisville, Ky., re- 
cently handed down an opinion in the 
case of Henry Flertle against Alice 
Riddel, in which he decides that the 
court will not interfere to enforce the 
removal of a dog buried in Cave Hill 
Cemetery, in that city, because the 
plaintiff regards such an interment as 
a nuisance, and dislikes the idea of 
some day being buried near the can- 
ine tenant of the cemetery. The 
defendant buried ‘‘Billy Hansbrough,” 
a pet fox terrier, in her lot in Cave 
Hill, and the plaintiff sought to have 
the body removed. The judge’s opin- 
ion in full is as follows: 
"Is the burial of a pet dog, ‘Billy’ 
Hansbrough, in Mrs. Riddell’s lot in 
Cave Hill Cemetery such a private 
nuisance that a court will abate by re- 
quiring his disinterment and removal, 
by a mandatory injunction, at the suit 
of Henry Hertle, who owns the ad- 
joining lot, and in which his daughter 
is buried? The result of the recent 
cases upon this subject was summed 
Discussion of Dr. Woodward’s Paper. 
Report of Delegate to National Con- 
vention, Detroit, Mich., 
George C. Gossard 
Question Box. 
Nomination of Offfcers. 
Thursday, June 20, 9 A. M. 
Paper — ‘.‘Keep Your Shop and Your 
Shop Will Keep You” 
Jacob Hayman 
Discussion of Mr. Hayman’s Paper. 
Report of Committees. 
Paper — ‘‘Association and City Ceme- 
tery” W. H. H. Montgomery 
Discussion of Mr. Montgomery’s 
Paper. 
Unfinished Business. 
Election of Officers. 
Afternoon Session. 
Immediately at the close of the 
morning session members will take 
cars for the “Zoo,” where luncheon 
will be had and freedom of the 
grounds given for sight seeing. From 
there the remainder of afternoon will 
be spent in the beautiful grounds of 
Spring Grove Cemetery. 
Evening Session, 8 p. m. 
Paper — “Stereotyped Undertakers” 
John W. Hanks 
Discussion of Mr. Hanks’ Paper. 
Paper — “Cremation” . Dr. A. L. Snyder 
Discussion of Dr. Snyder’s Paper. 
up by Lord Chancellor Halsbury in 
Fleming vs. Hislop, 11 App. Cas., 686, 
where it is said that ‘What makes life 
less comfortable and causes sensible 
discomfort and annoyance, is a proper 
subject of injunction.’ The injury done 
here is to the living plaintiff, who ex- 
pects to be buried in his lot at some 
future time. It consists in his distress 
of mind in contemplating his daugh- 
'^er’s present burial and his own pros-' 
pective interment in a lot adjoining 
that in which ‘Billy’ lies buried, with- 
out gravestone or marker to identify 
him. If this be an injury to person 
or property, it is too incapable of be- 
ing measured to invoke action by the 
court. If the claim of. right here as- 
serted be permitted to control, it 
would prevent the burial of any one 
— a murderer or a suicide for instance 
— whose grave might be objectionable 
to neighboring lot owners. That mat- 
ter is in the control of the cemetery 
company. An unburied dog, either 
alive or dead, may be a nuisance per 
se; but a dead dog, well buried as in 
this case, is not a nuisance per se, and 
cannot become one. The demurrer 
to the petition will have to be sus- 
tained.” 
We should be glad to hear from 
other cemetery officials who have had 
experiences with similar cases. 
No Cemetery Tax in New York 
The Appellate Court at New York, 
recently decided that cemeteries are 
exempt from assessments and taxation 
while being used solely for cemetery 
purposes. This decision reversed one 
handed down by Justice Blanchard 
confirming the report of the Commis- 
sioners of Estimate and Assessment for 
the opening of Perry avenue, in the 
Borough of the Bronx. Frederick H. 
Brandt and John J. Wilson took an ap- 
peal from the findings of the Commis- 
sion. The Appellate Court orders the 
report returned to the Commissioners 
with instruction to include awards to 
Brandt and Wilson for damage to build- 
ings. Justice Scott, ■ who wrote the 
opinion, says ; 
“We cannot accede to the claim, 
made on behalf of the city, that ex- 
emption for assessment, whatever its 
extent, applies only to so much of the 
land owned by the cemetery associa- 
tion as has been actually occupied by 
graves and used for purposes of in- 
terment.” 
It is also held by the Appellate Court 
tliat Brandt and Wilson are entitled to 
consequential damages, although their 
property merely abuts on the avenue 
and none of it is required to be taken. 
Street to Go Through Cemetery 
After a hot fight in the New York 
Legislature the Degroot bill permitting 
the cutting of a street through a sec- 
tion of Cypress Hill Cemetery, Brook- 
lyn, was passed. It was charged that 
it was a real estate scheme. Degroot 
of Queens, declared this false, and said 
that the road was needed for the de- 
velopment of Queens commercial inter- 
ests. Assemblyman Goldberg, of New 
York, objected on the ground that the 
graves of Jewish people would be dis- 
turbed. 
Cemetery Ordinances in Omaha 
Councilman Bedford, of Omaha, 
Neb., has introduced into the city 
council an ordinance to compel all , 
cemetery associations maintaing burial 
grounds within the city or three miles 
of the city limits, to file with the health 
department and engineering depart- 
ment, plats showing the location of all 
lots, lot owners and the number of 
graves on each lot. The ordinance is 
the outgrowth of the expose of the 
abuses at Prospect Hill Cemetery. 
CEMETERY LEGAL DECISIONS 
