THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
2 I 
CEMETERY NOTES. 
Chicago capitalists are said to have purchased a 
300-acre tract of land lying near Wheaton, west of the 
city, which they will convert into a cemetery. 
In a contested will case at Lowell, Mass., wherein 
the deceased bequeathed to the Lowell cemetery the 
sum of $2,000 for the care of her lot, the courts have 
decided that the legacy must stand. By its charter the 
cemetery corporation is authorized to receive bequests 
for the care of lots in accordance with the terms of the 
will and on this provision the court based its decision. 
The sum paid to the treasurer was $2,120, which in- 
cluded interest while the matter was in litigation. 
In the annual report of the Pittsfield, Mass., ceme- 
tery Secretary Stevenson, in referring to a new section, 
says: 
A good opportunity is here furnished to show the advantage 
of proper regulation, such as requiring a deposit for perpetual 
care, limiting the size of head-stones and number of monuments, 
so that the lot owner can judge if he does not get a better return 
for the money expended under such regulations than without 
them. It is not always the amount of money expended which in- 
sures the best results in an attractive and well cared for lot. In 
these new sections we hope to show to the purchaser the way in 
which experience teaches that his money can be expended to give 
the most satisfaction to himself and those who follow him. 
According to the Denver Republicaii the city officials 
are involved in a scandalous scheme to defraud the city 
out of money under a contract for the removal of bodies 
from the old city cemetery to Riverside cemetery. 
Graves in which interments were supposed to have been 
made were found to contain no trace of a human body, 
and other evidences of fraud were discovered. Dese- 
crating the graves of the dead and robbing the living in 
such a manner as this cannot receive too severe retribu- 
tion. Verily the greed of the average city politician 
knows no bounds, and the less he has to do with the 
cemeteries the better it will be for all concerned. 
The Riverside Cemetery Co. at Rochester, N. Y., 
contemplate introducing an electric funeral car for use 
on the street railways of that city. One end of the car 
will be fitted up to receive the casket and the balance 
of the car will afford accommodation for thirty mourn- 
ers. A hearse will meet the car at the cemetery gate. 
The economy of such a system, aside from its other 
obvious advantages, must in time cause it to supersede, 
to a great extent, the present method of conducting 
funerals. 
The pastor of a Methodist church at North Adams, 
Mass., took occasion during his Easter sermon to refer 
to the utter neglect of the cities of the dead in that com- 
munity. He said that “in that city of culture, with its 
beautiful scenery, fine residences and superior educa- 
tional privileges, it seemed very strange that so little 
care or thought should be given to this matter and men- 
tioned certain facts in connection with these places of 
burial which left a deep impression.” There are many 
communities in which the neglected burying grounds 
would afford a fruitful subject for ministers to dwell 
upon. It is to be regretted that they do not preach 
upon them oftener. 
A very beautiful and impressive adjunct to an aris- 
tocratic official Parisian funeral is the presence in the 
procession of the carriage of the deceased, the horse or 
horses, led by grooms in mourning liveries, and the 
lanterns lighted and veiled in long streamers of semi- 
transparent crape. The effect is at once sombre and 
picturesque, and is especially striking at the obsequies 
of some great personage, such as M. Thiers, Cambetta, 
or Victor Hugo. Nobody, not even the nearest rela- 
tive of the defunct, is permitted to occupy the vehicle. 
— Ex. 
The Disposal of Cholera Dead. 
In a paper on this subject read by W. F. McLean, 
of Elyria, O., before the Ohio State Board of Health 
at Columbus last month, the speaker said that while he 
considered cremation the ideal method of disposing of 
the dead especially in cases where death was the result 
of contagion or infection, he was of the opinion that 
the expense of building and maintaining crematoriums 
would be extremely burdensome to the smaller cities, 
and in view of the method not having yet attained uni- 
versal recognition, he felt that other methods were 
more likely to be pursued. He recommended the use of 
a hearse or dead-wagon constructed especially for the 
purpose. This should be in the form of an oblong box 
of sufficient size to hold a casket, and made of 2 -inch 
plank as nearly air tight as possible. The box should 
be open only at one end and be provided with rollers 
to facilitate handling the casket. The box should be 
covered with black cloth and mounted on the running 
gears of an ordinary wagon. Bodies immediately after 
death should be wra})ped in a winding sheet saturated 
with a strong solution of bi-chloride of mercury (i oz. 
to I gallon). Burial without a casket would be pre- 
ferable in which case the body could be laid on a board 
and covered with a pall. After being placed in the grave 
the body should be entirely covered with quick-lime 
and then with earth. 
The effect of applying quick-lime in a sufficient 
quantity to a dead body, would be to burn or dry out 
all the moisture from the tissues. The gases would 
unite to form nitrates, phosphates, sulphates, etc., and 
the body would crumble into dust without giving off 
poisonous gases. Should there be much moisture 
present in the body, or soil in which it is buried, the 
quick-lime would unite with the water and form calcium 
hydrate which unite fats to form lime soap, which is 
insoluble in water, and would not be carried in the 
water currents but filtered out in the earth through 
which it passed. An excess of quick-lime would give 
nearly the same results as cremation. The main differ- 
ence being the time consumed in producing these 
results. 
