io6 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
Chinese “Sanitary” Burial. 
The U. S. Consul at Hong Kong gives esti- 
mates by Dr. Grant, a missionary physician, of the 
ravages of smallpox in his part of the district of 
Ning Po: cases, 50 per 1,000 inhabitants; ratio of 
mortality, 70 per cent. Dr. Grant reckons by the 
number of coffins sold, added to the capacity of the 
five ‘‘baby towers” in which the uncofifined sucklings 
are deposited like garbage. Baby towers, the Con- 
sul explains, “are buildings about twenty-five feet 
high, built of stone and brick with tile roof, by vari- 
ous charitable organizations, for the reception of 
babies that have died before cutting all their teeth, 
as such are not considered worth boxing. There is 
a room with a platform raised about two feet from 
the floor. On this the baby is placed, the little 
body being wrapped only in a piece of straw mat- 
ting. They are piled one above another like pieces 
of wood, until the room is full, when the bodies are 
put in boats and taken into the country and buried. 
Ordinarily these towers are cleaned out twice a year, 
once in winter and once in summer, but, as Dr. 
Grant says, it was necessary to clean them twice 
during the past winter. 
“The people of this section do not in this case 
bury their dead, but place the coffin on the ground 
in a spot sometimes away on the hillsides, but in 
this city near their doors or along side the paths. 
The coffins are sometimes rolled in and covered, but 
thousands of coffins can be seen in a short walk pro- 
tected from the elements only by a straw covering. 
Only a short distance away from this office are im- 
mense ‘charnel’ houses; one is filled with corpses of 
those who died of cholera, the bodies being covered 
with lime after being placed in the coffins .” — The 
Sanitary Era. 
Extremes In Cemeteries. 
An article on page 79 of the MODERN CEME- 
TERY for September, touches somewhat on a chord 
of my own thought as to cemetery work -only just 
touches it. I have never seriously given attention 
to cemetery design, because I have never been able 
to satisfy myself that a true gardener could ever ex- 
pect to justify his art in a cemetery. I have noticed 
that the motive of those who visit either cairn or 
crypt, either vaulted Westminster, or picturesque 
Rock-creek, is centered upon the personalities of 
those who have gone before, and it is but rarely 
that any work of man can distract their attention 
for long, if at all. It is now and then possible to 
find a person intent only upon the sculpture, they 
are students perhaps, or even artists, but the great 
bulk of those interested in a burial place would ra- 
ther lose the monument than the epitaph. Perhaps 
there are no burial places in the world of such great 
and commanding interest as the little country 
churchyards, known to be the resting places of those 
great thousand lights of our race who never needed 
any monument whatever, except to identity the 
spot. No monument can for one moment compare 
in interest with Stratford on Avon, or Stoke Pogis, 
whether it be to soldier or statesman. How im- 
mensely it would be a loss if those spots were un- 
known needs scarcely to be said. 
Well then, if the living desire to mark the pla- 
ces of interment, will they not also desire to do so 
in their own way? And will not the cemetery giv- 
ing the greatest freedom be best appreciated, other 
things being equal? I fancy it will. 
But as everyone knows such treedom is destruc- 
tive to a lawn, or park or garden idea. The two 
things — the show-yard of the gravestone maker, 
and the natural picture of the gardener are utterly 
discordant, and I frankly confess that I have come 
to the conclusion in a moment, whenever I would 
approach it, and think. 
Can a modern cemetery be beautiful? And I 
answer, only in parts uninvaded by the marble slab. 
Beauty in a cemetery must be looked for, I 
think, in private rather than in public cemeteries; 
to such I would give the full power of creative con- 
ception, but I would never pretend that I could ex- 
tract beauty out of a surface covered as I know a 
modern cemetery must be. 
There is, I think, too much sameness in ceme- 
tery design — probably due to work by the same 
minds on similar conditions and with similar envir- 
onment. I imagine a very great improvement 
would be observed if superintendents of known 
tastes were engaged by the cemetery associations 
from the first, and the work of design and construc- 
tion entrusted to them. The same remark applies 
to public parks, — the country will never find the 
genius within it until it finds fields of action. 
Trenton, N. J. James MacPiierson. 
The Garden. 
Under the gloom of the shivering pines. 
That whisper when it blows. 
Behind the creeper-covered wall, 
' Is a garden that always grows. 
In summer and in springtime, 
And when the winter snows 
Bend the dark branches to the ground, 
The garden always grows. 
The hand of man has made it. 
The white stones stand in rows; 
The tears of the world have watered it. 
And the garden always grows. 
There are many gardens like it. 
Their number no man knows. 
Each day, till the world is ended. 
This garden always grows. 
— Loritner Stoddard. 
