46 
THE MODERN CEMETERY 
CEMETERY NOTES. 
It is expected that the loooth. cremation at the 
Fresh Pond crematorium on Long Island will be 
made this month. 
One of the requests of a Tennessee man was that 
the stone coffin which he had provided for his own 
use, be filled with whiskey. 
Land near Rochester, N. Y., which is said to 
have cost the Oak Hill Cemetery Ass’n. , $300,000 
several years ago, was sold at auction recently for 
$45,000. The cemetery project has been aban- 
doned. 
In an article on reminisences of the old Presby- 
terian cemetery at Lynchburg, Va., the Nczus pub- 
lishes some quaint extracts from a record of inter- 
ments kept by the undertaker more than fifty years 
ago. It was customary to bury the slaves of lot owners 
in the public ground and some of the following entries 
refer to them. After giving the name of the party 
buried, we have “y^ong married lady,” “middle 
aged man,” “old man,” “young man,” “small 
boy,” “married, ” “poor, ” “elder in church,” “aged- 
man,” “stranger,” “black girl,’’ “Miss B..s Phil, 
buried by Cato,“ “Blank’s black girl,’’ etc. 
Among other improvements referred to in the 
sixteenth annual report of the Magnolia cemetery. 
Charleston, S. C., is a beautiful new lake, covering 
twenty acres of marsh land. It is the intention to 
have the lake dotted with islands which will add 
much to its attractiveness. $150,000 have been ex- 
pended in making “Magnolia” a model cemetery. 
The trustees of New York Bay cemetery, Jersey 
City, N. J.,have resolved to remove all arbor vitae 
hedges from around lots. 
Contracts have been let for a receiving vault of 
white granite at Forest Hill cemetery, Kansas City, 
Mo., to cost $13,000. 
Why the Funeral? 
In a paper entitled. Why the Funeral? read be- 
fore the Iowa Funeral Directors Association at 
Webster City recently by the Rev. F. W. Parsons, 
the writer attributes many of the methods of burial 
in the past to fear and a consequent desire to be 
forever rid of the possibility of a returning ghost. 
It is love, the writer says founded on a belief in im- 
mortality that is the cause of the funeral of today. 
In this he voices a sentiment upon which there is 
but one opinion. Not so however in his reference 
to cremation wherein he says: 
Cremation or the burning of the body in all probability has 
its origin in this fear. It is true that this custom is found among 
highly civilized people as the Greeks and Romans but it did not 
originate with them. Before ever the Creeks lived or the Roman 
Empire came into existence, rude and uncivilized tribes, even 
those of the stone age were accustomed to burn the dead bodies 
of theii friends, and in all probability, fear was the first cause of 
the custom. Several reasons have been given why the Greeks 
and Romans practiced cremation. It has been said that they 
did it for sanitary reasons or lack of space for burial, but whatever 
may have been the reasons with these people the piobabilities 
are that with the less developed tribes it was a desire to get the 
dead man entirely out of existence so that his spirit could not 
come back to haunt or hurt the living. 
Cremation will never again be practiced by enlightened peo- 
ple but embalming will become more and more the custom. We 
will not burn the body because we are afraid of it, neither will we 
burn it because we have no room to bury it and if sanitary rea- 
sons are urged in favor of the horrid custom, embalming will 
meet all those reasons, and our love for the departed will keep 
us from destroying their bodies by fire, and cause us to use 
every possible means to preserve 5nd keep those bodies. I am 
not speaking as an interested party but bear my prediction upon 
the fact that love is the prevailing sentiment in the funeral of 
this age. 
It is evident that the writer is not informed as 
to the progress that cremation is now making and 
that too among the most enlightened. Advocates 
of cremation give place to no sect in the firmness of 
their belief in the immortality of the spirit and it is 
the very essence of love that prompts them to prefer 
the purifying influences of the flame to the loath- 
some certainties of inhumation. 
It begins to appear that one of the most pressing 
needs of Washington is a crematory, writes our cor- 
respondent at the National Capitol. There is a 
growing objection from the property owners in all 
sections of the city, to the establishment or main- 
tenance of orthodox burying grounds, through the 
proximity of which drinking water may be contami- 
nated. One of the latest suburban cemeteries here 
to come under the ban of the suburban resident and 
real estate man is Graceland. This cemetery was 
established in 1871, and consists of about thirty 
acres of high, rolling, gravelly land, which has been 
planted partly in trees, and promises in time to be- 
come a picturesque spot. Unfortunately, however, 
there is one portion of the cemetery, a strip ofabout 
100 feet wide, running along the Benning’s road, 
which is low and marshy, and in this, as the cheap- 
est part of the cemetery, nearly all the 6,000 inter- 
ments have been made. The result has been that 
the burial sites have become much overcrowded and 
there is said to have been a great deal of sickness in 
the neighborhood. 
A bill was recently introduced in the Senate 
making it unlawful to inter bodies in this cemetery, 
the measure providing a penalty of not less than 
$100 nor more than $500, for any one violating the 
provisions of the act. It is claimed that the ceme- 
tery has practically reached the limit of its capacity, 
and that the interment there of any more bodies 
would be dangerous. The Commissioners of the 
District approved the bill but before it becomes a law, 
a legal fight is expected as the cemetery officials 
claim that the charges are unfounded. 
