PARK AND CEMETERY. 
646 
had its headquarters at Shelby, Ohio. The 
present Home Office of the International 
Mausoleum Co. is at Chicag-o, 111. 
These companies have sold State and 
County rights where possible, and it is 
from these rights that the smaller or local 
companies are organized. 
It is the selling of these territorial rights 
that has caused such poor and grotesque 
buildings. Each owner of these rights is 
a “greenhorn” at mortuary work. If he 
employs a local architect it will most likely 
is so built expected to last forever. The 
agent who is selling catacombs will say, 
“We have a permanent fund to take care of 
these things as they decay.” Here is where 
the $2,500 mentioned before comes in. This 
in one case was also to be used to create a 
fund for janitor service, open and close 
catacombs and give perpetual care. Let 
us see how it will work out; $2,500, care- 
fully invested, will bring in about $100 a 
year. 
Now let us in justice to the mausoleum 
been approached by some representative of 
the mausoleum company. In every case 
they had been either refused permission 
to build in the cemetery or the mausoleum 
company wanted to erect too cheap a 
building, and were not willing to allow a 
reasonable amount for perpetual care. 
I will digress here to say that an agent 
of the mausoleum company even went 
further with the cemetery that I have the 
lionor to represent, and asked us to par- 
tially finance the deal for them. 
PARK EFFECTS IN THE LANDSCAPE OF WESTMINSTER CEMETERY, PHILADELPHIA. 
be the first work of this kind he has done. 
Few architects know much about mortu- 
ary work, as it is or should be a calling 
separate frotn other architecture. 
The owner also wants to keep the cost 
down, first in order to make a good profit, 
and second to sell these catacombs to the 
public in competition to the other forms of 
disposing of the dead. The mausoleum 
companies always claim their method is the 
cheapest. 
That it looked like a get-rich-quick 
money-making scheme there is no doubt. 
It has not always proved as profitable as 
it seemed on paper. 
The methods generally are as follows: 
a plan for a building is made to hold, say 
500 catacombs, these are represented to be 
worth in most cases $150 each. Agents are 
sent out to get subscriptions at this price, 
and each subscriber is asked to sign a sub- 
scription note of $150,00 for each catacomb 
purchased. These subscription notes usually 
call for one-third of the amount when the 
foundations are in, one-third when the 
building is up to the roof and the balance 
pn completion. 
A building to hold 500 catacombs usually 
costs about $40,000. The subscription price 
is $75,000. The difference, except $2,500, 
which I will discuss later, is the promoter’s 
profit — if everything turns olit as expected. 
You will notice tl^at if everything goes 
as planned that very little capital is re- 
quired to build these buildings. In fact, 
the subscribers pay as the work proceeds. 
These buildings are far from being per- 
manently built. To be sure, they are built 
mostly of concrete. This portion is all 
right, but they have in many cases wrought 
iron gates, iron doors, iron beams and 
skylight frames. Think of a building that 
company presume that the agent was talk- 
ing beyond his authority, and that the 
money was to be used for perpetual care 
only. How far would this $100 go? At 
our New York convention one of the great- 
est mausoleum builders in the country 
made the statement that no private or 
family mausoleum should have an endow- 
ment of less than $10,000 or $400 a year, 
and here is a company who are saying that 
$100 a year is ample to take care of a 
building, which on account of its size can- 
not be as well built and is fifty times 
larger. This is where the public is taken 
in because they do not understand these 
things. That the scheme appeals to the 
public there is no doubt, especially to the 
female mind, and many of our superin- 
tendents are in favor of this mode of dis- 
posing of the dead. 
I do not hesitate to say that these cata- 
combs are being sold by misleading state- 
ments, and it does not stop at what 1 
have said about perpetual care; as for in- 
stance, at our last convention Mr. L. L. H. 
Austin, an officer of the mausoleum com- 
pany, was given ten minutes to address 
the convention, and on account of this ad- 
dress they lead people to believe that we 
endorse their proposition, and say that we 
“manifested marked interest when Mr. 
Austin addressed the convention.” We 
were, no doubt, interested, but not in the 
way they would have the public believe. 
In the fall of 1910 a cemetery associa- 
tion not organized for profit sent a com- 
mittee of two to thoroughly look into the 
community mausoleum proposition. The first 
city they visited was Chicago. 
They called on officials of most of the 
leading cemeteries, and each one of these 
officials expressed the opinion that they had 
The next visit of the committee was to 
Kankakee, 
111. There 
they 
found 
a 
mau- 
soleum 
of 
560 catacombs. 
They 
gave it 
their 
opinion that the architecture 
was 
poor and 
undesirable, 
and 
that 
no 
pro- 
vision 
had 
been made 
for 
perpetual 
care. 
I will 
again digress 
to say that 
I 
have 
looked into the Kankakee project myself 
because the mausoleum company describe 
this building in one of their advertisements 
as ‘‘one of the finest mausoleums of over 
500 crypts ever built in the United States.” 
The committee, however, were misinformed 
as to “no provision for perpetual care.” 
for a fund has been created amounting to 
$2,700. The interest of this fund has to 
keep the grass on the lot cut as 'voii as 
keep the building in repair. In justice to 
the builders of this building I wili stale 
that they have put more money into it 
than is usual. The building is inade of 
cement blocks with marble and glazed 
brick interior. There is. however, much to 
be criticised from a sanitary standpoint. 
For instance, the odor from one catacomb 
can pass to another behind the marble 
slabs. The much-boasted valves to let out 
the foul gases were in some instances en- 
tirely out of order, and I believe in due 
time will all get corroded. The formalde- 
hyde deodorizing tanks were empty, and 
from inquiry found that this is the rule, 
and to have them filled was the exception. 
These tanks, by the way, were in wooden 
boxes. 
The committee next visited Springfield, 
111, At that time there was in the course 
of construction what Mr. Hood, the pat- 
entee and president of the company, 
claimed to be the finest of all the 
community mausoleums. This committee 
found that the exterior of this permanent 
