PARK AND C EM ET ER F. 
474 
are excellent tall growers for cemetery 
use. 
Perpetual care should be an important 
consideration in any cemetery. By this 
is meant that a part of the purchasing 
price of every lot is set aside to form 
a fund, the income of which is used in 
the care of the cemetery. In this way 
after the lots are all sold there is a fund 
on hand and we have reasonable assur- 
ance that the cemetery will be cared for 
and kept beautiful long after it is no 
longer used as a place of burial. Let 
the people once see a park cemetery 
having a provision for perpetual care 
and it is surprising how readily the 
lots can be sold at a good price. But 
in order to get the good price to estab- 
lish the perpetual care fund, the ceme- 
tery must be made beautiful to start 
with. Prices for lots should vary ac- 
cording to location and run from ten 
dollars to a thousand, depending simply 
upon choice of location. The price of 
best lots should be put so high that 
they will not be purchased right at the 
start. It is a hard matter to make 
cemetery trustees see the truth of this 
last statement. A year ago I laid 
out a new section in Springhill 
Cemetery, Danville, 111. The highest 
.priced lots had formerly sold for $75, 
but I asked the trustees to charge 
$750 for some of the best lots in the 
new section. But the trustees 
thought that $350 was quite a jump 
from their former price and never 
expected to get that amount. The 
result was that the four lots first 
sold were the best lots in the section. 
The cemetery plan is perhaps the 
most important consideration in 
starting a park cemetery. Cemeteries 
were formerly platted and laid out 
by engineers. Today this work is 
done by the landscape architects. 
The former deal with straight lines, 
the latter with graceful curves. Our 
old cemeteries have an alleyway on 
each side of every lot, resulting in a 
waste of space which costs a great 
deal to keep up. Later alleyways 
were placed only on two sides of the 
lots, while the better cemeteries of 
today have an alleyway only on one 
side of each lot. The park ceme- 
teries of the future will have no alley- 
ways at all, for their only use now 
is in placing the monuments, and in 
the future we will do without the 
monuments. In the establishment of 
a new cemetery much depends upon 
the right sort of a plan. Properly 
laid out as a park cemetery, much is 
saved in after care. 
Making over the old cemeteries 
into park cemeteries is interesting 
work for the reason that we see the 
before and after effect. It will doubt- 
less be a surprise to some to know 
that such a thing is possible. As to 
how it may be done, perhaps some 
experience with Oakhill Cemetery at 
Watseka, 111., may be of interest. 
This cemetery has been established 
for 50 years, and until two years ago 
was owned by two men. They had 
sold lots for a number of years at $60 
each, but as it was a “revenue only” 
proposition with them, they had neg- 
lected to keep the cemetery in any 
sort of condition. The result was 
that the people began to go else- 
where for the purchase of new lots, 
and the cemetery became something 
of an elephant on the hands of the 
owners. They finally offered to deed 
the cemetery to the Woman’s Club 
of Watseka provided the club would 
keep it in condition. The women of 
the club accepted the proposition, in- 
corporated as a Cemetery Associa- 
tion, and raised $6,000 by subscrip- 
tion for the cemetery improvements. 
In the making over of this old style 
cemetery into a park cemetery, I 
found that it was only necessary to 
explain to the lot owners just what 
was proposed and why, in order to 
get consent for the removal of the 
copings, fences, foot stones and the 
burial even with the ground of the 
lot markers. Very little opposition 
was shown to the radical changes 
made, and after three months’ work 
the cemetery presented such an im- 
proved appearance as to be the talk 
of the locality. During the progress 
of the work, the alleyways were 
raised even with the lot grade with 
earth removed in the formation of an 
artificial lake. Everyone was sur- 
prised and delighted to see the im- 
proved condition and the club women 
deserve much credit in bringing it 
about. 
The same change could no doubt 
be made with the cemeteries of many 
other cities. There is no more noble 
work for a woman’s club than this. 
Why will a club take up the study 
(?) of Grecian mythology or of 
Egyptian history and other useless 
rot of the past, when there are so 
many practical things near at hand, 
affecting our daily lives, demanding at- 
tention ? 
The motto of this association is 
“For a Better and More Beautiful 
America.” If we carry forward this 
motto, we must give attention to the 
subject of “More Beautiful Ceme- 
teries” as a part of our work. 
CEHETERY NOTES 
"'cvv.'-i 
Judge Speer, in the Hudson Coun- 
ty, New Jersey, Circuit Court, ren- 
dered an important decision that dis- 
pels the idea that cemetery property 
is not liable for taxes or damages, 
and made an order that a receiver be 
appointed for the New York Bay 
Cemetery Company. Susan Harri- 
son, who was severely injured by 
falling into a posthole, sued the com- 
pany two years ago and was awarded 
a verdict of $4,000. Her counsel, 
James A. Gordon, learned that the 
company had three bank accounts and 
made application for the appointment 
of a receiver. Judge Speer, in dis- 
posing of the contention that the 
moneys can be used only in keeping 
up the grounds, said: 
“This notion rests upon the theory 
that either the moneys thus in the 
hands of the company are imposed 
with a trust in favor of the lot own- 
ers, or that such moneys are in no 
sense the moneys of the company 
because they are the result of ultra 
vires activity on the part of the trus- 
tees. But it seems perfectly clear 
that neither of these bases has any 
substance whatever.” 
Concerning the other contention 
that the funds are exempt from taxa- 
tion execution. Judge Speer decides 
that the act applies only to the lands 
used for burial purposes, or bonds 
and mortgages given for the purchase 
of such lands, and not to the personal 
property, and the money is not ex- 
empt from civil process, execution 
and taxation. 
* * * 
From time to time the public press 
brings to light the not infrequent liti- 
gation between the owners of lots in 
Catholic cemeteries and the cemetery 
authorities themselves over the refusal 
of the cemetery officials to permit the 
interment of those against whose burial 
the church has legislated. The Catholic 
Encyclopedia in its article on “Burial” 
as quoted in the True Voice, says on 
this subject: “Various classes of per- 
sons are excluded from Christian burial 
— pagans, Jews, infidels, heretics, and 
