i6 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
propagated and as the houses become empty along in 
midsummer the young plants are set out on the benches. 
Heretofore no effort has been made here to grow the 
monster single stem flowers, but a good medium sized 
flower, and when several houses are a sheet of bloom 
they are exceedingly attractive. 
A fine stock of Harrisi lily, azaleas, hyacinths, 
tulips, crocus, and other seasonable flowers were in 
bloom to suit Easter-tide, which is always taken advan- 
tage of by lot owners to decorate graves, etc. At Oak 
AVoods no effort is made in the way of big ornamental 
conservatories. The houses are well although plainly 
built just such style as florists might use who under- 
stood their business. Edgar Sanders. 
Greenwood Cemetery. 
[Mr. Halford L. Mills, of London, Eng., the author of the 
following article on Greenwood cemetery, Brooklyn, N. Y., re- 
cently visited this country and has written his "impressions” for 
the London Funeral Directors' Journal. Mr. Mills is known 
throughout England as one of the foremost movers in funeral re- 
form; he is at the head of the Reformed Eunerals Co., is an ad- 
vocate of cremation and has probably done more than any other 
person to do away with the gloomy funeral practices that were so 
long observed in that country. Mr. Mills expresses surprise at 
the comparatively few crosses to be seen in our cemeteries and 
has promised The Modern Cemetery an article on the subject.] 
I think it was Ward Beecher who said that the New 
Yorkers go to Brooklyn to sleep, to die, and to be 
buried; and among the many places that are provided 
for the final reception of their bodies, “Greenwood 
Cemetery” is by far the most noted. 
Thp chief object of the ambition of a thriving New 
York merchant is, before his death, to obtain a brown 
stone mansion on Fifth avenue, and when this is 
achieved his next business is to build an enormous 
structure as his mausoleum in Greenwood Cemetery. 
By-the-bye, whence came we with that word “mauso- 
leum?” which every cemetery official that I ever heard 
attempt to use it distorts by accenting the “o” in the 
middle of the word instead of the “e” in the final sylla- 
ble. The good Queen Artemisa IE little knew that she 
was enriching the human language for all time, when in 
the 4th century before the Christian era, she erected a 
splendid structure to the memory of her husband, 
Mausolus, King of Caria, a Phoenician colony, which 
became a kingdom in Asia Minor. Whether that is sur- 
passed by the magnificence of the present structures in 
Greenwood Cemetery, I must leave to the Americans to 
decide; probably they would claim in this matter, as in 
many others, that they have “licked Creation.” 
At Greenwood Cemetery, I found myself to be one of 
of the very few travelled Englishmen who have taken 
pains to inform themselves in reference to the peculiari- 
ties and customs of American interment and cemetery 
management generally. Occasionally a cemetery super- 
intendent from England, or one who had some pro- 
prietary interest in an English Cemetery company, has 
looked in for a short period; but I found myself s^ 
cordially welcomed by Mr. L. J. Wells, the superin- 
tendent, who is a civil engineer by profession, and has 
had charge of that cemetery for 45 years, that I spent 
half a day there with very great pleasure. In extent it 
is about one square mile, actually 474 acres; and as I 
drove about in it for hours, partly in an independent 
way and partly with the superintendent in his brougham, 
I am able to say that there is nothing like a waste space 
in it, but that the whole of its surface is most carefully 
as well as beautifully and artistically arranged, laid out 
and filled up, so that there is no point at which the per- 
spective is not an entertainment. 
Unlike the cemeteries that we are accustomed to, it 
is bounded by main roads on all sides; these make eight 
entrances a possibility, a great consideration for funeral 
traffic, both in regard to the size of the place, and the 
fact that no central spot has to be reached by all 
funeral traffic, as is the case with us where the service 
is to be held in the cemetery church — the universal 
custom in America being to hold the religious service 
in the house of the deceased and to then go straight to 
the grave side; having entered the cemetery gate the 
funeral proceeds to the grave by vale and crescent, dell 
and dale, arbour and lake — for there are no fewer than 
eight lakes, some natural and some artificial within the 
walls of Greenwood Cemetery — the cemetery roads in 
labyrinthian confusion are beyond the complexity of a 
maze. It is naturally an undulating spot, and in every 
respect the natural advantages have been heightened by 
art. Each eminence in it is named, there is “Glade 
Hill” and “Ocean Hill,” which is the highest, and 
commands a view of the entrance from the Atlantic 
Ocean to New York Harbor. 
One peculiarity of Greenwood Cemetery — a point in 
strong contrast to what we are accustomed to here, 
though I believe only in accord with the universal cus- 
tom of the American continent — is that it is not a 
dividend earning, nor a rate-paying concern, but is a 
“corporation” formed exclusively for the purpose of 
providing burial accommodation, and all of its revenue 
is spent upon itself. There is in the first place a hand- 
some remuneration made to all who take part in its ad- 
ministration. The equipment of the whole place is per- 
fect and admirable to an extent far beyond our ideas. 
It possesses a fund of $1,370,586 for the permanent 
care and improvement of the cemetery in addition to a 
special trust fund, for the permanent care of lots which 
have been sold, of $322,278. 
The staff of the cemetery comprises, carpenters, 
painters, blacksmiths, engineers, 200 men, 20 horses, 
and steam roller; an engine pumping-house with power 
to lift water 150 feet, which is extracted from five wells 
and by which the lakes and reservoir are kept full; a 
mechanical stone crusher, and suitable premises for 
carrying on the work in every department. The stone 
