92 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
Visit to the Graveyards of Hamburg. 
Whoever visits Hamburg this year is likely to 
go to the cemeteries. A grewsome trip it is to trav- 
el over the road where within a few weeks last year 
trod nearly 10,000 funerals. There are Jewish and 
Christian cemeteries. The Christian cemetery is 
well laid out and thickly planted with trees and all 
kinds ot shrubbery. There are driveways, footways 
and settees. The grounds cover an immense area 
and scores of laborers are constantly employed, who 
keep them in superb order. An inspection of the 
gravestones points plainly enough to the great mor- 
tality during those last few days of August and the 
early weeks of September, last year. Sometimes 
two or three or four stones within a single family 
plat bear the same date. 
Even many of the graves of the poor are marked, 
for slabs are cheap, very clever little ones with the 
inscriptions on them being quoted at the roadside 
at prices which are equivalent in our money to not 
more than $4 or $5. The very poor still rest in 
the trenches where they were buried on those terri- 
ble days. At the height of the epidemic almost 700 
died per diem, though this rate was maintained for 
only a short time, and it was out of the question to 
make the burials in separate graves. These trenches 
are still unmarked; but it is expected that a monu- 
ment will be erected, a fit companion-piece to a 
large sarcophagus in another part of the city which 
commemorates the fate of many residents of Ham- 
burg, who fell victims to starvation during the se- 
vere winter 1813-14, and the cold marble and his- 
tory books will soon be all that are left to tell of one 
of the most awful visitations of scourge in modern 
times. — Corr. Philadelphia Telegraph. 
The will of the late Jesse H. Griffen of York- 
town N. Y. , contained the following clause: “I 
desire that my corpse may be put in a plain walnut 
coffin, without any silver plating and carried to 
Omawalk by some of my friends in an ordinary 
spring wagon, and that no tombstone should be 
erected where my mortal remains are reposited in 
the earth, for I have noticed that people in moder- 
ate circumstances are often distressed by trying to 
follow the example of others who make expensive 
displays at funerals, and tombstone honors are a 
truer indication of the vanity of survivors than of 
the virtues of the deceased. If in passing through 
this life I can do anything for which posterity will 
be better and happier it will be sufficient monument 
to my memory. If I fail in this, let no marble slab 
bear the witness that one so worthless lived.” 
* * * 
The New England Undertakers’ Association are in confer- 
ence with the faculty of the Harvard University Medical School 
with reference to establishing an embalming school for the better 
education of undertakers. 
Cremation. 
The first crematorium to be built in New Eng- 
land is now in course ofoonstruction near the rear 
entrance to Forest Hills cemetery, Boston. It is a 
substantial stone structure and with the acre and a 
half of ground surrounding it will cost $30,000. Oil 
will be used in the retorts in place of coal or wood 
ordinarily used. 
# # # 
Instead of being on the verge of abandoning its 
property and objects as was published in a Cincin- 
nati paper sometime ago. The Cincinnati Cremation 
Co., give every evidence of being as determined to 
succeed as ever. They have recently taken out the 
old retort in which 215 bodies had been cremated 
and replaced it with two larger and improved re- 
torts. Secretary Roever writes that there is every 
evidehce of growth of sentiment in favor of cre- 
mation. 
# # # 
In Germany there is to be fresh legislation for 
the prevention of epidemics; and a proposal is made 
in the Reichstag for making cremation optional 
throughout the Empire. In England cremation is, 
within certain limits, already optional, but there is 
a strong feeling, partly sentimental and partly re- 
ligious, against it. The recent debate in the Ger- 
man Reichstag brought out the fact that among all 
parties, there was a strong inclination to favour this 
mode of performing the last rites. What the bal- 
ance of parties is in Germany, in the immediate fu- 
ture, is, of course, at present very uncertain, but 
there can be little doubt that a new law of a string- 
ent character will be passed for the preventing of 
epidemics. — -Funeral Directors Journal. 
In Worcester, England, is a stone erected over 
the grave of a departed auctioneer of that city, on 
which “Gone” is inscribed. In a Sussex graveyard, 
in addition to the initials of the deceased and the 
date of death, a stone has inscribed in large letters 
the words “He Was.” Two of the strangest as well 
as the shortest epitaphs are “Asleep (as usual),” on 
the tombstone of a large individual by one who 
knew him well, and “Left till called for” is carved 
on a gravestone in Cane Hill Cemetery, Belfast. A 
photographer has this inscription over his grave: 
“Here I lie, taken from life.” On the tomb of 
Charles the Great, first Emperor of Germany, are 
two words only, “Carolo Magno.” — St. Louis Globe- 
Democrat. 
» * * 
The number of the Modern Cemetery which you have 
sent me is as fine a copy of typographical work, the illustrations 
as pretty, as I have seen for some time, and w-ould bear a very 
creditable comparison with any journal with which I am ac- 
quainted . — Franklin Brett, Boston, Mass. 
