PARK AND CEMETERY 
290 
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« • 
is not the only ground for caution. If 
every member of this bench clearly 
agreed that burying grounds were 
centers of safety and thought the 
Board of Supervisors and the Su- 
preme Court of California wholly 
wrong, it would not dispose of the 
case. There are other things to be 
considered. Opinion still may be di- 
vided, and if, on the hypothesis that 
the danger is real, the ordinance 
would be valid, we should not over- 
throw it merely because of our ad- 
herence to the other belief. Similar 
arguments were pressed upon this 
court with regard to vaccination, but 
they did not prevail. On the con- 
trary, evidence that vaccination was 
deleterious was held properly to have 
been excluded. Jacobson v. Massa- 
chusetts, 197 U. S. 11; s. c. 183 Mass. 
242. See Otis v. Parker, 187 U. S. 
606, 608, 609. Again there may have 
been other grounds fortifying the or- 
dinance besides those recited in the 
preamble. And yet again the extent 
The City of San Antonio, Texas, re- 
cently called for plans for a landscape 
cemetery of 500 acres, and a contest 
was conducted by the “American Flor- 
ist.” Prizes of $500, $300, and $200 were 
the stakes. Fifteen designs were offered 
and it was quite a task to make the 
awards. The first and second prizes 
fell to E. Habecker, of Knoxville, Tex., 
and Bartlett & Ramsay, of San Antonio, 
respectively, while the third prize was 
awarded to Richard Iwersen, superin- 
tendent of parks, of La Crosse, Wis. 
The location of the proposed cemetery 
is about 7 miles south of San An- 
tonio and can be reached by two high- 
ways. The land is almost level with a 
slight slope and was formerly used as 
the city sewage farm. The scheme in- 
volves the provision of a section for 
every nationality and religious belief. 
The first thing to be secured is a water 
supply, either direct from the city, or 
by an artesian well. 
The Greenwood cemetery corporation 
of Brooklyn, N. Y., has been assessed 
by the U. S. Circuit Court to pay $250 
damages in the infringement suit 
brought against it by the Farnham Sand- 
blast Company of Manhattan. The suit 
was for $6,600, and was brought on ac- 
count of the cemetery authorities hav- 
ing used the patentees stone polishing 
process in certain of their work. 
to which legislation may modify 
and restrict the uses of property 
consistently with the Constitution 
is not a question for pure ab- 
stract theory alone. Tradition and 
the habits of the community count for 
more than logic. Since, as before 
the making of constitutions, regula- 
tion of burial and prohibition of it in 
certain spots, especially in crowded 
cities, have been familiar to the West- 
ern World. This is shown sufficiently 
by the cases cited by the court below; 
e. g. Coates v. New York, 7 Cow. 585. 
Kincaid’s Appeal, 66 Penn. St. 411. 
Sohier v. Trinity Church, 109 Mass. 1, 
21. Carpenter v. Yeadon, 158 Fed. 
Rep. 766. 86 C. C. A. 122. The plain- 
tiff must wait until there is a change 
of practice or at least an established 
concensus of civilized opinion before 
it can expect this court to overthrow 
the rules that the lawmakers and the 
court of his own state uphold. Judg- 
ment affirmed. 
The Governor of New Jersey has ap- 
proved the law recently passed by the 
legislature. Chapter No. 238, Laws of 
1910, authorizing cities to acquire cer- 
tain old burying grounds or cemeteries 
for park purposes and to provide a meth- 
od therefor. After the preamble it pro- 
vides that wherever there exists in any 
city of the state a cemetery, owned by 
church of other corporation unable to 
care for it, and so leaves it to become 
a public nuisance, such church or cor- 
poration may apply to the city board 
having charge of the finances to take 
possession, and the whole or part may 
be conveyed to said city. Where a cem- 
etery has become a menace to health 
the Board of Health may apply to the 
city finance department to take posses- 
sion. Should such cemeteries be unde- 
sirable or not worthy of care, the bodies 
shall be reinterred elsewhere and the 
cemetery be converted into a park. Pro- 
vision is made for application to the 
Circuit Courts to ensure the legal re- 
quirements being properly carried out, 
and a number of clauses are added to 
provide for difficulties or disagreements 
in the course of taking such cemeteries 
over, and reinterring the remains. 
FROM CEMETERY REPORTS 
The annual report of the Marion, 
Ohio, Cemetery Association for the 
year ending April 1, 1910, showed re- 
ceipts of $12,935.97 and expenditures of 
$6,919 for the year. The following new 
rules were adopted : “Rule 30. All mon- 
uments, headstones or grave markers 
must be of granite, standard bronze or 
Italian or Vermont marble, or other 
marble of equal quality. No sandstone 
bases to be used under any work. Rule 
31. Markers of any kind placed by so- 
cieties on the graves of deceased mem- 
bers must not be above the grade, mark- 
ers on the graves of soldiers excepted.” 
Marion Cemetery now consists of 60 
acres, 40 of which are under lawn care. 
No work is permitted to be done by 
outsiders. There are 4,600 burials re- 
corded, including 183 last year. 
The annual meeting of the Ilion, N. 
Y., Cemetery Association was held 
April 6. The officers elected were: A. D. 
Richardson, president; John V. Schmidt, 
vice-persident ; A. N. Russell, secre- 
tary; Charles Harter, secretary, and 
Ernest G. Schulz was continued as su- 
perintendent. The receipts for the year 
were $3,345.84, and. the expenditures, 
$2,590.93. Assets were declared to be 
$16,435.93 and liabilities $6,698.81. An 
earnest appeal was made to give the 
matter of perpetual care immediate and 
effective consideration, and early re- 
sponse is expected. The superintendent 
was commended for the progress made 
in the condition of the cemetery. 
The annual report of Longmont Cem- 
etery Association, Longmont, Colo,, 
showed total receipts of $3,012.23, and 
expenditures of $2,892.30. The sale of 
26 lots realized $1,046.10 ,and for care 
of lots $792 was received. The labor 
in the cemetery cost $1,294.70 and per- 
manent improvements consumed $1,- 
355.10. The amount received for per- 
petual care was $1,300. The total bur- 
ials for the year were 89. 
River View Cemetery Association, 
Portland, Oregon, reports receipts for 
1909 as follows : Lots sold, $19,267.50 : 
single graves, $2,154 ; opening graves, 
$2,451.50; plants and flowers, $3,397.74; 
foundations, $1,534.41. Disbursements: 
grounds, $4,636.97 ; plants and flowers, 
$493.52; foundations, $363.30; general 
expense, $11,082.26; buildings, $3,405.18. 
The Perpetual Care Fund, invested, 
now amounts to $67,200. 
The fifteenth annual report of the 
Board of Public Works of the city of 
Little Falls, N. Y., for 1909, is devoted 
chiefly to the financial affairs of the city. 
The cemetery under its control com- 
prises twelve acres of land and was ac- 
quired by purchase, and the lots, ex- 
clusive of the commuted and trust fund 
lots, were assessed $2 per lot for main- 
tenance in 1909, the total assessment be- 
ing $1,245.71. 
CmETERY NOTES 
