6 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
CEMETERY DEVELOPEMENT. 
The change that is taking place in public sen- 
timent, regarding the care and improvement of our 
cemeteries, is as marked in the developement of its 
expression as in the changed physical conditions it 
has been the means of producing. And while there 
exists as it were a wide gulf between the appear- 
ance of the cemetery 'of the past and that of the 
present, the degree of this 
advanced development is 
practically only the work 
of a few years. 
To change old and well 
established ideas, the 
work of centuries, how- 
ever ill conditioned for 
a more progressive age, 
requires persistent effort; 
but to eradicate deep 
rooted prejudices, in a 
measure protected by old 
time superstition, makes 
the necessity of careful 
education paramount. 
This in itself would gen- 
erally suggest that pro- 
gress will be slow. 
But the nature of the 
American people, the ad- 
vantages they have en- 
joyed and the wondrous resources at their com- 
mand, have hastened an otherwise slow and diffi- 
cult process, and the manner in which the cemetery 
question is being taken up in so many localities, 
distinctly suggests that it is a subject, once proper- 
ly presented, that assumes vital interest, and that a 
proper understanding of the matter in any commu- 
nity will ensure immediate and practical attention. 
The accompanying 
illustrations are present- 
ed as an object lesson 
in the important work 
of cemetery develope- 
ment. 
The view of the Mo- 
hammedan cemetery of 
Damiscus, while it gives 
the prevailing style of 
cemetery care among 
that people, also repre- 
sents the conservatism 
and lack of anv idea 
of progress, that allows 
of little change in the 
means and methods of 
centuries. It also very 
graphically connects the 
past with the present. 
Tliere are the regular 
rows of mounds, more 
exaggerated of course; there is the stone yard, with 
here and there a monument more pretentious that 
its fellows; there is the monotony of its symmetry, 
and many of its features, exaggerated though they 
be, suggest the forerunners of those that it is the 
effort of the promoters of the modern cemetery to 
banish for ever. 
Plate 2. is an example of a cemetery, carefully 
PLATE I. MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY, DAMASCUS. 
PLATE 2. 
