57 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
disinterment of bodies in abandoned 
cemeteries under certain conditions 
without the consent of the nearest 
relatives of the dead. The matter 
came before the commissioners on re- 
quest of Henry G. Freitag, who 
bought a square of property in the 
southeast section of the city, which 
he intended to use for building pur- 
poses. After plowing the ground he 
discovered that it had at one time 
been a cemetery, and as the present 
laws prevented him from removing 
the bodies he appealed to the com- 
missioners for relief. An amend- 
ment to the District Code was found 
to be necessary. 
It is provided that the petition for 
the removal of the bodies shall de- 
scribe the land, shall name the own- 
ers if the land, the next of kin of the 
dead as shown by the records of the 
health office, and that the cost of 
court proceedings and of the disin- 
terment shall be assessed on the land 
involved. 
Legislating for Perpetual Care 
The legislature of Pennsylvania has 
taken one step towards the future 
care of cemeteries by passing the 
following bill: 
BILL NO. 23. 
An Act to better provide for perpetual care 
and preservation of burial-grounds or cem- 
eteries within this commonwealth. 
Section 1. Bet it enacted, etc., That on 
and after the passage of this act, no charter 
or proposed charter of any burial or ceme- 
tery company, either of first or second class 
of corporations, shall be granted or ob- 
tained in this commonwealth; and it shall 
be the duty of any court of this common- 
wealth, or any judge thereof, or the gov- 
ernor of this commonwealth, to refuse to 
approve of such charter or proposed char- 
ter; unless the said charter or proposed 
charter shall set forth a provision, clearly 
and fully, that a sum equal to at least one- 
tenth of the gross amount of the funds 
arising from the sale of lots in said burial- 
ground or cemetery shall be set apart for 
the perpetual care and preservation of the 
grounds and property of said burial or ceme- 
tery company; which fund, so set apart by 
the directors or managers of said burial 
or cemetery company, shall be invested 
by them, in trust, for the uses and pur- 
poses of said trust, and the income arising 
therefrom to be applied by them to the pur- 
poses aforesaid, The directors or managers 
shall, in one year after the incorporation of 
any cemetery or burial-ground, and annually 
thereafter, file with the clerk of courts of 
the county in which said cemetery or burial- 
ground is situated, a bond with sufficient 
sureties, to be approved by the court of 
quarter sessions, for the faithful perform- 
ance of the trust herein imposed, for per- 
petual care and preservation of grounds 
and property; such bond to be in the full 
amount of the trust investment at the time 
said bond is approved, as aforeprovided. 
Sec, 2, All laws or parts of laws incon- 
sistent herewith are hereby repealed. 
Approved — The 18th day of March, A. D. 
1909. 
Now let the other states do like- 
wise. It is up to the members of the 
A. A. C. S. to get their local repre- 
sentatives interested; and the thing 
will be accomplished. 
All reforms have to be done slowly 
probably in the near future, bills may 
be passed to compel all of the older 
cemeteries that are doing business to 
double, or so increase fees for inter- 
ments that an endowment fund can 
be started and so solve the problem 
of caring far neglected_ rural ceme- 
teries. 
Paxtang, Pa. Bellett Lawson. 
Control of Body in Connecticut 
A Connecticut statute provides that 
“the custody and control of the re- 
mains of deceased residents of this 
state is hereby granted and shall 
hereafter pertain to the husband or 
wife of the deceased; but if the sur- 
viving husband or wife had aband- 
oned, and at the time of death was 
living apart from the deceased, or if 
there be no husband or wife surviv- 
ing, then such custody and control is 
granted and shall pertain to the next 
of kin; but the court of probate for 
the district of the domicile of the de- 
ceased may, at any time, upon the 
petition of any of the kin, award such 
custody and control to that relative 
who may seem to said court most 
fit, for the time being, to have the 
same.” 
The question as to the meaning of 
the words “custody” and “control” as 
used in this act was presented in the 
case of Swits vs. Swits, 71 Atlantic 
Reporter, 783 . It was contended that 
In an address delivered by Mr. F. 
D. Willis, superintendent of Oakland 
Cemetery, St. Paul, Minn., at a re- 
cent convention of funeral directors, 
he strongly advocated close and har- 
monious relations between the ceme- 
tery superintendent and the funeral 
director, supporting his position by 
explaining the many opportunities 
each has for mutual help to the bene- 
fit of all concerned — cemetery official, 
lot-owners and undertakers. Their 
interdependence he accentuated by 
such facts as that the client of the 
funeral director is also the client of 
the cemetery superintendent, and that 
differences between these parties 
were liable to destroy the client’s 
confidence in both. Mr, Willis also 
dwelt quite fully upon the necessity 
of keeping up-to-date in improve- 
ments and appearances, quoting from 
his own experiences that a well-kept 
cemetery was served by a well-kept 
undertaker’s establishment, and vice 
these words relate primarily to the 
immediate possession of a dead body 
prior to interment, and that, when 
the statutory right has once been ex- 
ercised, this right is exhausted. But 
the supreme court of errors of Con- 
necticut thinks that from the entire 
act it was apparent that its purpose 
w'as to avoid unseemly controversies 
over the remains of deceased per- 
sons, and that the surviving husband 
or wife shall generally have the cus- 
tody of the dead body. 
In this case it appeared that after 
the death of the defendant’s husband 
the relations between her and the 
former’s mother (the plaintiff) were 
of a hostile nature. No stone was 
erected to mark the grave of the de- 
ceased husband, although the body 
had ■ been interred for two years in 
the burial lot of his mother. Under 
the circumstances then existing the 
widow preferred to have her hus- 
band’s remains interred in a burial 
lot under her own control. After ob- 
taining the necessary statutory per- 
mit, she caused their removal to her 
own burial lot, where she had the 
right to be interred by the side of 
her husband. 
Under such conditions there was 
nothing unnatural or unreasonable, 
the court says, in the action of the 
widow, and it did not appear that 
she had so exercised her right as to 
call for the interference of a court 
of equity. 
versa, and that good business was in- 
volved in the proposition. Altogether 
the address was full of suggestions 
and facts indicative of what the re- 
lationship between the two callings 
should be in mutual help, and of what 
it is quite natural that the lot-owner 
should expect and receive from both. 
Funeral directors should take advan- 
tage of the state cemetery associa- 
tions, in which discussions and ex- 
periences are both interesting and 
useful. In many places the funeral 
director could make himself of in- 
valuable help in cemetery betterment. 
This whole matter is being consid- 
ered by those engaged in preparing 
the program for the next convention 
of the Association of American Cem- 
‘^etery Superintendents, and it goes 
without saying that it adds immense- 
ly to the proceedings of both the 
state and national meetings to hear 
from other interests whose work is 
closely associated with the cemetery. 
THE CEMETERY and the UNDERTAKER 
A. 
