210 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
been made to serve a double object, the cultivation 
of the ground and the support of a proportion of 
the poorer classes, after the Governor Pingree idea. 
The results appear to have been both excellent and 
useful. This idea may be made expansive and 
should be made to include the care by the owners 
or otherwise of all the vacant lots of a city. There 
is nothing more detrimental to the appearance of a 
locality than vacant lots, made the dumping ground 
for much of the refuse of the neighborhood, adorned 
with dilapidated advertising boards, and altogether 
unsightly in the vast majority of cases. It is a 
matter for municipal authority to control, and this 
control might include some planting improvements. 
Imagine the appearance of a partially occupied 
block, wherein the vacant lots were either clean 
lawns or lawns adorned with a shrub or two. The 
expense would not be great, compared with the 
advance in value of the ground and surroundings, 
but note the contrast ! 
I T IS to be earnestly hoped that the pernicious 
influence of professional politics, as such has 
been practised in certain phases of our com- 
munal life, will soon be a thing of the past in this 
country. And this will come, and is coming, as 
an intelligent understanding of the relations be- 
tween politics and its field of operations is reached. 
Cupidity, self-interest, ignorance of duty, are among 
the riding causes of much of the perversion of right 
and propriety in the political affairs of today, and 
how difficult it is to impress upon men, intelligent 
as they m ly assume to be, the practical value of 
such intangible forces, all may have had reason to 
- realize- There has been pretty constant opportun- 
ity to criticize the methods and motives of the au- 
thorities controlling Chicago’s park affairs in the mat- 
ter of appointments to the office of superintendent, 
and it m^y be said with much force that adaptability 
to the office is about the last qualification demanded 
of a candidate when a vacancy occurs. And yet 
the men composing the park boards of the three 
park districts are “all honorable men,” so to speak. 
There must, however, be something very “rotten 
in the state of Denmark,” looking at the prospect- 
ive appointment of a plumber to the office of sup- 
erintendent of Lincoln Park, and that there must 
be duties attached to the office known only in the 
secret councils of the order of Park Commissioners. 
Plow ridiculous it seems ! And what a gross insult 
to the good sense of a community, whose money 
they expend, and whose interests they are nom- 
inated to safeguard, it is to make such an appoint- 
ment. Such an official act without further investi- 
gation stamps the commissioners as incompetent 
for their office. It is a consummation devoutly to 
be wished that, as in other directions in the great 
city of Chicago, and for that matter in many of our 
larger cities, success may attend the efforts of the 
intelligent citizens to secure faithful and efficient 
representation on such boards. In our municipal 
affairs every chance of domination to unrighteous 
ends should be eliminated from the nominating 
power, and every possible chance afforded to place 
upon our park boards men whose only ambition 
should be to build up the parks in interest to the 
fullest attainments possible with means and oppor- 
tunities at command. It is safe to say that only 
men of taste and enlightenment are fitted for the 
position, and mere commercial success, already 
accorded more than its due, should not any longer 
be the criterion of a man’s capacity for a park com- 
missionership, or we shall have more plumbers as 
park superintendents, from which to judge of the 
caliber of the park commission. 
r HE effect of the restrictions on monumental 
work in our leading cemeteries is far more 
significant than can be realized by the ordin- 
ary observer, but that it is very pronounced may be 
taken for granted. The larger manufacturers of 
this class of products report that orders for small 
memorials are rapidly falling off and that a more re- 
fined order of memorial work is in demand. This 
is the result of the modern plan of cemetery im- 
provement, whereby the stonework is reduced to a 
minimum and more variety and greater refinement 
in design is required by the cemetery management. 
The landscape plan of cemetery establishment in- 
volves serious study in relation to this very ques- 
tion of monumental art. That it requires, for its 
best effects, a minimum of such work is at once ap- 
parent, but it is not at once apparent to the ordinary 
mind that design in this minimum has a very posi- 
tive relationship to the harmony of the land- 
scape. Study of this phase of the subject will de- 
velop its importance and show why in some situa- 
tions a cross monument would be effective, while in 
others a sarcophagus would not militate against the 
general aspect of the section. Or to work the prob- 
lem out still further, when monuments of other ap- 
propriate designs would harmonize with and not 
interfere with the planting and natural decorative 
features of the spot under consideration. The ques- 
tion of monumental art in the modern cemetery 
makes the duties of the superintendent more in- 
volved, and necessitates that he shall make himself 
acquainted with the fundamental principles of the 
broad art which he is called upon to minister unto, 
and having mastered the principles to build thereon 
a broad understanding of the details necessary to 
beautiful creations. 
