I 
CEMETERY. 
THE MODERN 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
H iLiiismii!! mmiiu Jimii itmo ii i«! iiitnEsi if cemfieiiifs 
334 Deapbopn Street, CHICAGO. 
Subscription fi.oo a Year in Advance. Foreign Subscription $1.25. 
Special Rates on Six or More Copies. 
VoL. III. CHICAGO, JUNE, 1893. No. 4. 
CONTENTS. 
CONDEMNATION OF LANDS FOR CEMETERY PURPOSES. 3? 
BURIAL EXPENSES 37 
PERE LA CHAISE, PARIS 38 
SLATE HEADSTONES 37 
riHC BELMO.N r MEMORIAL, NEWPORT, R. 1 40 
WOODIO) ISLAND AT WORLD'S FAIR 41 
A I'LEA FOR CREMATION 42 
CHAI’I':L, grove hill cemetery, SHELBYVILLE, KY 4.3 
LANDSC 'PE GARDENING 44 
EXTRACT FROM LAWS OF LOWELL CEMETERY, 
LOWELL, MASS 45 
PROGRAM SEVENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION A. A. C. S.... 4? 
CEMETERY NOTES 46 
WHY THE FUNERAL? 46 
WATER WORKS, OAKWOOD CEMETERY, RED WING, 
MINN 47 
EXTRACTS FROM RULES OF FLORAL PARK CEMETERY, 
BINGHAMPTON, N. Y. 47 
PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT 48 
Condemnation of Lands for Cemetery Purposes. 
The right to condemn land for what is deemed 
to be a public use is given by statute to counties, 
towns, school districts, railroad companies, parties 
who desire to flow land, and to others. In all these 
cases the right may be exercised on the failure of 
the parties to agree. No good reason can be given 
why an exception to this should be made in the case 
of cemetery associations. Thus declares the Supreme 
Court of Errors of Connecticut in the case of the 
Westfield Cemetery Ass’n. v. Danielson. 
Section 1871 of the General Statutes of that 
state provides, among other things, that the owner 
of any' cemetery, who wishes to enlarge its limits by 
adding land, the title to which he cannot otherwise 
acquire, may prefer a complaint for liberty to take 
the same. The words, “the title to which he can- 
not otherwise acquire,” it was contended, limits the 
right to take land under the statute to cases where 
it is, strictly speaking, impossible to acquire title in 
any other way. The claim was that, if the owner 
of the land refuses to sell at any price, the land may 
be taken under the statute, but if is he willing to sell 
at some price, however unreasonable, that price 
must be paid, and the land cannot be taken under 
the statute. If, for instance, the owner of land rea- 
sonably worth $100 is willing to sell it for $500, 
and refuses to sell for less, then the price demand- 
ed must be paid, or the cemetery association cannot 
obtain the land at all. To this the court would not 
assent and said that the language of the statute, in 
itself considered, is not fairly susceptible of such a 
construction. In the great majority of cases where 
land is sought to be taken to enlarge a cemetery, 
the parties will be unable to agree about the matter. 
The owner will demand a price either in fact exorbi- 
tant, or which the other party deems to be so. The 
owner will refuse to convey unless his price is paid, 
and the other party will refuse to pay it. Under 
such circumstances, it may be fairly said that the 
title cannot be acquired at all, otherwise than by 
condemnation proceedings. In using the language 
in cpiestion the legislature did not have reference to 
an absolute impossibility to acquire title, but to a 
relative and practical impossibility, arising out of 
circumstances which would naturally, and did ordi- 
narily, prevent the voluntary conveyance of the title 
by the owner. In short, it had reference to the 
ordinary case of a failure of the parties to agree, 
after a fiir attempt to do so. 
The safety of the living requires the burial of 
the dead in proper time and place; and as this court 
said once before, inasmuch as it may so happen 
that no individual may be willing to sell land for 
such use, of necessity, there must remain in the pub- 
lic the right to acquire and use it under such regu- 
lations as a proper respect for the memory of the 
dead, and the feelings of the survivors, demands. 
And as it is of the utmost importance that such a 
right should be preserved unimpaired, a construc- 
tion of a statute, relating thereto which essentially 
destroys it ought not to be adopted, unless the lan- 
guage employed will fairly admit of no other. 
Burial Expenses. 
The law seems well settled that an executor or 
administrator of a deceased person is liable for the 
suitable and reasonable burial expenses of his testa- 
tor or intestate, if he have assets sufficient for that 
purpose; and if such personal representative, by 
reason of absence or neglect, fail to furnish such 
burial, in the first instance, he is liable to the one 
who incurs such expenses, so far as he has assets of 
the deceased in his hands. This is the decision of 
the Supreme Court of New York in the case of Kit- 
tle V. Huntley. It also holds that an expenditure 
