PARK AND CEMETERY, 
23 
tery, Rochester, N. Y., the trustees submitted a lengthy report 
accompanied by a map of the ioo acres now comprising the 
cemetery, pointing out the natural beauties of the property, the 
great improvements made, and enlarging upon the advantages 
of perpetual care, and the permanent quality which should char- 
acterize improvements. The total expenditure on the cemetery 
to date amounts to $165,927.81. Three thousand lots have been 
laid out and the contracts call for perpetual care free of further 
cost. It is conducted strictly on the lawn plan, and individual 
headstones have to be set flush with the lawn. 
* * * 
The idea of adopting means to prevent burial in cases of 
mistaken death is once more under discussion. Among sugges- 
tions on the subject is that of setting apart or erecting a morgue 
in every cemetery, provided with electric or other means of 
communication between a supposed corpse and the office. As 
has been before noted in these columns, many of the European 
cemeteries are thus furnished, and a means of appeasing such 
dreadful doubts put in operation. Where there is the slightest 
doubt, any arrangement by which a body could be kept, with- 
out danger of evil consequences to attendants and others, until 
certain signs of mortification set in, would meet the case. 
* * * 
Many examples of the mismanagement of cemetery affairs 
by town authorities, who have gone into the cemetery business, 
are well-known. The town of Everett, Mass., is another if the 
strictures of the Herald of that town in regard to Glenvvood 
cemetery are founded in fact. It states that in 1890 authority 
was had to purchase 12 acres of land at $500 per acre. A 
total amount of $34,800 has been expended on the cemetery with 
receipts of $21,997, out of which $150 has been reserved for a per- 
petual care fund. A recent order has been passed by the coun- 
cil appropriating $9,000 for the purchase of additional land. In 
arguing the original proposition the mayor is said to have pre- 
sented the case as buying land for a little over a cent a foot and 
selling it for sixteen cents. The paper suggests the reverse seems 
to have been the result. 
* * * 
Our contemporary Sunny side says: Mr. Chauncey Depew 
caught a severe cold while attending the funeral of President 
Roberts, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and he is now quoted as 
in favor of abolishing formal funerals which are especially dan- 
gerous for pall bearers. He says that General Sherman prophe- 
sied that the soldiers of the late war would die off from the ef- 
fect of exposure at the funerals of departed comrades. The gen- 
eral contracted the cold that resulted in his death by attending 
a Grand Army funeral. The custom of uncovering the head at 
the grave is responsible for many colds that have resulted fatally, 
and this feature of funerals may well be abandoned. People go 
to cemeteries in all kinds of weather, and stand for some time in 
the open air, while the last rites are being paid to deceased per- 
sons, when every mark of respect might just as well be paid 
within doors and with safety to the living. 
* * * 
Among the suggestions on “Funeral Reform” offered in a 
paper by the Rev. John C. Tebbetts, North Adams, Mass., are, 
in part the following: 1. Make the interval between death and 
burial short. 2. If a casket is to be used let it be a plain one, 
such as will be readily decomposed, and with little or no orna- 
mentation. 3. The employment of a hearse might in many 
cases be dispensed with. 4. In the use of carriages economy is 
especially demanded. 5. All the “trappings and suits of woe” 
might wisely be abolished. 6. Flowers white and fragrant are 
appropriate as emblems of hope and the resurrection, but a few 
are sufficient if we can afford them. 7. Costly monuments, 
erected at private expense, and for the undistinguished dead, are 
a foolish waste of money. In conclusion the reverend doctor 
says: If we believe in the resurrection we ought not to be dreai- 
ily mournful over a death. 
* * * 
Waldheim Cemetery, situated in Oak Park just beyond the 
northwestern limits of Chicago, is a noted German cemetery, 
comprising some 81 }4 acres of land, bounded on one side by the 
Des Plaines River, from which the water supply is pumped di- 
rect. It was opened on May 1st, 1873, and owing to there be- 
ing no religious restrictions it has been largely patronized by se- 
cret societies. The older portions of the grounds still display 
the characteristic profusion of stone work, but the newer parts 
are all conducted on the lawn system. There are quite a num- 
ber of pretentious monuments, and also the only memorial in ex- 
istence of the order of Druids. The roads through the grounds 
are mostly of permanent character and macadamized, and the 
drainage is good throughout the cemetery. There have been 
over 23,000 burials recorded, chiefly of Germans and German 
Americans. The grounds were originally laid out by Mr. 
Koenig. 
* * * 
The sixty-fifth annual report of Mount Auburn Cemetery, 
Boston, shows that the Repair fund, the income of which goes 
to the perpetual care of lots amonts to $897,413 08 an increase 
of $43,441 during the past year. The Permanent Fund, ac- 
cumulating for the care of the cemetery after all lots are sold 
amounts to $364,461.23 having gained $6,106.39 during the 
year, over and about expenditures on buildings now under con- 
struction. These buildings are an office building and chapel. 
The chapel has a length over all of 116 feet, and a width across 
transepts of 54 feet. The office building has a frontage of 55 
feet and a depth of 65 feet, and it is connected with the chapel 
by a cloister. The material used is Potsdam, N. Y., red sand- 
stone. Among the receipts for the year were: Sale of lots, 
$15,745.60; labor and material on lots $59,465.14. In the ex- 
penditures the pay rolls consumed $37,142.02 and materials $12,- 
800.65. The total number of interments in the cemetery 31,407. 
Mr. Chas. L. Knapp, treasurer of Lowell Cemetery, Lowell, 
Mass., has had the following bill introduced into the Massachu- 
setts Legislature, with good prospects of success: 
An act authorizing executors and administrators to deposit 
reasonable sums with cemetery corporations or with cities 
or towns for perpetual care of burial lots. Be it enacted, 
etc. 
Section 1. Executors and administrators are hereby author- 
ized to deposit with cemetery corporations or with cities or 
towns, having public 01 private places therein, reasonable sums 
for perpetual care of any lot in such cemetery, public or private 
burial place, in which may be interred the body of their deceased 
testate or intestate, or which may belong to the estate of their 
deceased testate or intestate, and such sums may be allowed in 
their probate accounts. 
Section 2. This act shall take effect upon its passage. 
There is not much poetry in the following practical recom- 
mendations of the auctioneer’s advertisement for sale of Tenny- 
son’s birthplace, Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. The place 
is often spoken of “In Memorium”: “Well suited either for a 
country residence, or for occasional occupation by a business 
man in connection with the hunting, shooting and fishing. * * 
On the first floor, reached by two staircases, nine bed and dress- 
ing rooms. On the second floor, large attic. The domestic of- 
fices consist of kitchen, scullery, larder, stateroom, pantry, etc., 
and in the basement are dairy, wine and beer cellars. Stabling 
and harness-room, with loft over. Gardener’s cottage, potting 
sheds, etc. Area of house, gardens and land is over fifteen acres. 
Rent for the whole, including sporting rights, is $600 per annum.” 
