351 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
■'From indications we are going to 
see a big attendance at Kansas City, 
August 11 , 13 and 13, this year. Many 
are showing an interest by sending 
photos and slides for the lantern slide 
evening. Several good papers are con- 
tributed and several have agreed to 
take up the discussion on points of in- 
terest. Your committee is anxious to 
make this feature one of the best edu- 
cators ever introduced at an A. A. C. S. 
meeting and we ask 3 'ou (that means 
each reader of this call ) to send at 
once any good lantern slides showing 
any of the following features and if 
you have no slide send a good photo, 
preferably one with glossy finish, show- 
ing your entrance if it is new or unique 
or different from the other fellow’s, also 
views of office buildings, chapel, tomb, 
drives, gutters, catch basins, grading of 
sections, planting of sections, lakes, 
bridges, water falls, water plants, choice 
bits of planting, bedding, specimen 
trees and shrubs and evergreens, tools, 
handy and convenient for cemetery use. 
Now get busy, see what you have or 
are doing that may interest the other 
fellow, contribute something to show 
the new man the methods and means 
of running a modern cemetery and 
A.A,C,S Notes 
/0rOie-\^o& Convention 
thereby prove you are a progressive 
man in your line of business. Now is 
your chance. Do not let the other fel- 
low reap all the credit and step up 
higher into some vacancy to be filled 
because you were too timid to tell the 
people of your own good things you are 
accomplishing. “Do it now.’’ Send to 
Sid J. Hare, 3234 Campbell St., Kansas 
City, Mo., those photos. State whether 
you want them back and ,vou shall have 
them. We will make the slides if you 
send us good, clean, smooth prints. 
“Do it now” as your committee will 
be busy later and your views will not 
get into the bunch. 
The following quotation shows what 
others think of Kansas City: 
“Beautiful, Wonderful Kansas City.** 
Dr. Royal S. Copeland of Ann Arbor, Mich.. 
President of the American Institute of 
Homeopathy, in the American Physician. 
“It we:re perhaps a work of supererogation 
to speak of the beauties and attractions of 
this wonderful city. Commercially, physi- 
cally, aesthetically, it is second to none in 
these United States. The combined popu- 
lation of Kansas CitJ^ Mo., and Kansas City, 
Kan., separated simply by an imaginary 
line, is nearly 400,000. The municipalities 
form one great restless, aggressive, progres- 
sive. beautiful city. High bluffs. deep 
gorges, attractive ravines, multitudes of riv- 
ulets. great rivers, high land and bottoms — 
all give themselves to natural picturesque- 
ness and artistic possibility. Millions upon 
millions have been spent in developing one 
of the finest park and boulevard systems in 
the world. This is, without doubt, one of 
the show cities of America. The trans- 
continental tourist who has simply passed 
through Kansas 4 City, and almost every 
American railway sj^stem touches it, knows 
nothing of the multitudinous attractions of 
this place. The railways are in the valley 
out of sight, and the city on the hill tops. 
One must take the incline and view it from 
a high place to know that at his feet lies 
the pride of the West, beautiful Kansas 
City. Here are vast hotels, gorgeous thea- 
ters, great churches, palatial homes, wide 
gardens, inviting shade, and cool retreats.” 
The postal views we sent each one 
last month will show that Kansas City, 
U. S. A., is the spot worth visiting, 
three live cemetery superintendents, 
three beautiful cemeteries and a park 
system equal to any and a talk from the 
man, Mr. Geo. E. Kessler, who has 
made it so, should induce you to resolve 
and be on hand. Your Committee, 
Root-Hyre-Cook-Hare. 
NOTES of CEMETERY LA’W and LEGAL DECISIONS 
Daisy B. Cook, of New Orleans, is su- 
ing her brother, Wilfred Beebe, in the 
civil district court, for the division of 
the family lot and tomb in the Metairie 
Cemetery, where their parents are 
buried. Together the tomb and lot are 
worth about $3,000 and it is the last 
piece of property held in common be- 
tween the brother and sister. The opin- 
ion has been expressed by several prom- 
inent attorneys that it is not possible to 
hold a sale by public auction of this 
class of property, although such an 
extraordinary point has never been pass- 
ed upon the Louisiana Supreme Court. 
In the answer filed by McCIoskey & 
Benedict, attorneys for the defendant, 
Beebe admits that his sister is half own- 
er in the property and the title to the 
lot was vested in his father, Henry 
Beebe, by the cemetery association in 
March, 1879. Fie says that property of 
such a character possessing the attri- 
butes of sanctity is hors du commerce 
and outside the domain of the laws and 
rules that apply to commercial proper- 
ties. Beebe’s attorneys claim the laws 
of all civilized nations provide the right 
to a burial lot or tomb extends no far- 
ther than the right of sepulchre, which 
is inalienable. The case will probably 
not be decided till this fall. 
Charles Evans Cemetery, Reading, 
Pa., has brought suit against a monu- 
ment dealer for the price of re-sodding' 
a lot. The dealer made a contract with 
a lot owner to erect monument, head- 
stones, etc., and resod the lot. He was 
paid for it, but now refuses to pay the 
cemetery for resodding the lot, as the 
lot owner died a few weeks after making 
the contract but placed the lot under 
perpetual care in his will. 
Supreme Court Justice Parker at 
Newark, N. J., has granted a writ of 
certiorari bringing up to the Supreme 
Court for review the action of the state 
board of health in reversing the decision 
of the North Arlington Borough Coun- 
cil, and granting the Roman Catholic 
Diocese of Newark the right to maintain 
a cemetery within the boundary of the 
borough against the wishes of the local 
authorities. The matter was reported in 
detail in our last issue. 
Judge Adams in the supreme court 
circuit at Newark, N. J., has granted an 
order to the Fairmount Cemetery Asso- 
ciation setting aside an assessment of 
$16,580, levied on the cemetery by the 
assessment commissioners about four 
years ago, for a sewer. The assessment 
was objected to by the cemetery, who 
claimed the tract is exempt from taxes 
by virtue of their charter. 
A colored man bought a lot in a Long 
Branch, N. J., Cemetery and paid part 
of the purchase price and the charge for 
opening a grave. His dead child was 
buried in the lot and when he tendered 
the remainder of the purchase money it 
was refused on the ground that he was 
a colored man and rules of the cemetery 
prohibited the sale to persons of African 
descent. Out of this state of facts a 
chancery suit resulted in a decision filed 
Iw Vice-Chancellor Stevens, which has 
given rise to much newspaper comment, 
and the erroneous impression that ceme- 
teries may be taxed. The decision sets 
forth that the evidence does not show 
that the plaintiff is of African descent. 
The rules of the company do not ex- 
clude colored persons from ownership, 
but only those of African descent, which 
might include Algerian Frenchmen or 
Dutch Boers who are not colored per- 
sons. The chancellor suggests that a 
new question may grow out of this case 
and that is whether discrimination 
against negroes may not eliminate the 
charity feature which permits the ex- 
emption of cemeteries from taxation. 
The Greenwood Cemetery Association 
which was recently refused permission 
by the board of health of Millville, N. 
J., to locate a cemetery in the eastern 
section of that city, will appeal to the 
state board of health 
i 
