68 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
CEMETERY NOTES. 
At the instigation of the board of health of Mal- 
den, Mass., Holy Cross Cemetery has been investi- 
gated and found to contain many violations of the 
law requiring three-foot graves. Proper reinter- 
ment has been required in each instance. 
An old rule at Fernclifif Cemetery, Springfield, 
O., provides that the cemetery gates shall remain 
closed in the forenoon on Sundays. For some 
reason it was overlooked or disregarded for some 
time, but is now being enforced and lot-owners hav- 
ing tickets of admission are admitted on that day 
from I to 6 p. m. 
The trustees of the recently organized PTlgewood 
Cemetery, at Nashua, N. H., have engaged the ser- 
vices of a Boston landscape artist to prepare plans 
for the improvement of their cemetery. Both the 
old and new portions of the grounds will be treated 
in the new plan, which contemplates the addition of 
a lake, an extensive water system and other perma- 
nent improvements that will give Nashua one of the 
most modern cemeteries in the Granite state. 
A long-standing dispute between the city of 
Newark, N. J. and Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Associa- 
tion about assessments on the latter’s property has 
just been settled. The association’s charter pro- 
vided that it should be exempt from assessments 
until the Chosen PTeeholders decided that it should 
pay them. In 1891 the Freeholders by resolution 
declared that the time for c.xemption had passed. 
The Common Council has decided to cancel the 
assessments made prior to that time. 
By the will of the late Wm. A. Marriott of Al- 
toona, Pa., $9,000 is bequeathed to the Altoona 
Fairview Cemetery Association. The money must 
be expended for a chapel and is subject to the 
further condition that the cemetery shall never be- 
come an institution for the profit of its stockholders. 
Among many other bequests made by Mr. Mar- 
riott was one of $1,000 in trust to the mayor of the' 
city, who is to distribute the interest thereon among 
the deserving poor of the city every winter. 
The Supreme Court of Brooklyn has granted a 
lot-owner a permanent injunction restraining the 
sale of the Union Cemetery. The Legislature last 
year passed an act prohibiting any further burials 
in the cemetery and permitting the trustees to sell 
the property. When Mr. West, the lot-owner, 
brought suit, the trustees, it is understood, were 
negotiating with a building company for the sale of 
the property and the removal of the bodies. The 
court held that the deed of plaintiff’s lot conveyed 
to him the perpetual right of burial there, unless, in 
the exercise of police power of the State, interments 
were forbidden on account of the public health. 
Parched and burned describes the condition of 
many village burying grounds at this season of the 
year. Searcity of water has browned the luxuriant 
growth of grass and weeds, and in some places the 
spark from a passing locomotive has fired the dry- 
grass and left everything desolate. The monu- 
ments and markers resemble so many spectres ari- 
sing from their blackened surroundings, and the 
place looks even worse than it did when shrouded 
in weeds and rank grass. A little attention in the 
spring would obviate, in a measure, such an un- 
desirable condition at a time when every “God’s 
Acre” should blossom as the rose. 
The Westminster Cemetery Co. of Philadelphia 
have been enjoined by the city against establishing 
a cemetery in Lower Marion on the Schuylkill, on 
th e ground that its drainage would pollute the 
waters of the river and endanger public health. In 
their answer to the suit the cemetery company as- 
serts that the use of the land for cemetery purposes 
would not pollute the water or be in any way preju- 
dicial to health. They also state that the act of 
the Assembly for 1891, prohibiting the establishing 
of cemeteries within one mile of cities ot the first 
class is unconstitutional. 
Russian Jews have a burial custom peculiar to 
themselves. In that country the undertakers keep 
handsome, silver-mounted burial caskets, to which 
the bottom is attached by springs. After the fune- 
ral ceremonies are over, and the coffin has been 
lowered into the grave, the mourners withdraw and 
the coffin is lifted out, leaving its bottom and the 
corpse in the grave. These show caskets are let to 
the poor at reasonable rates, and they can have a 
fine funeral at small cost. A Norwich, Conn, un- 
dertaker had a request for such a coffin the other 
day, and being unable to furnish it, the Russian 
community had one made and will use it hereafter. 
A Cincinnati judge refused to enjoin the officers 
of the German Catholic Cemetery from refusing 
permission to a lot-owner to remove the remains of 
of his deceased children from the cemetery. The 
plaintiff had become a Protestant, and desired to 
bury his children in Protestant ground. The judge’s 
holding is that the next of kin have the right to 
designate where their dead shall be buried, and, 
the burial once having taken place, there is no 
right of property in the dead body upon which a 
claim can be asserted. In the case at bar the 
children had been buried about four years. Were 
the plaintiff about to remove to another city, and 
