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PARK AND CEMETERY, 
T HIS journal has from time to time urged, 
not only the advisability, but the necessity, 
of submitting designs for public memorials to 
an Art Commission, or to some properly qualified 
committee, who shall pass upon said designs, and 
designate the most meritorious and appropriate for 
the purpose intended. To the same end The Mon- 
umental News, of Chicago, formulated a suggest- 
ion to the Central Art Association, Chicago, em- 
bodying this idea so often urged, and at the last 
meeting of that body formal action was taken in 
favor of the suggestion. It may now be definitely 
stated that the Central Art Association will receive 
and pass upon designs entered for competition for 
public monuments, free of cost to those in charge, ex- 
cept that the expenses incident to sending the designs 
to and from Chicago must be defrayed by those re- 
questing the action of the association. Herein lies- 
an opportunity to secure better monuments for 
public memorials, and the certainty that our dead 
soldiers will be assured artistic consideration in the 
structures erected to their memory. It is quite time 
that common sense had an innings in the matter of 
such monuments, which, had it prevailed long ago, 
much of the ridicule, very justly attaching to so 
many, would have been uncalled for. The idea that 
only those having particular interest in the object 
for which a monument is erected, should decide on 
a design, whether they be old soldiers, old citizens, 
corporals or generals, is positively absurd, unless 
duly and properly qualified by education or call- 
ing. And this idea has been so ardently advocated 
and so tamely submitted to, that, as we said before, 
much of the work of to-day will either be modified 
or destroyed before many generations have passed 
away. Let the soldiers’ committees, or those inter- 
ested in reverencing the dead soldier, ceaselessly en- 
deavor to promote the acceptance of these sugges- 
tions, to the end that our public monuments may be 
able, not only to defy ridicule, but to compel ad- 
miration. 
I N connection with the foregoing, the January 
issue of Arts for America will contain an article 
on the “Grand Army and Its Legacies,” discussing 
these pertinent questions concerning soldiers’ and 
sailors’ monuments. It will set forth the obligations 
of those in authority in that organization to use care 
and discretion in the selection of their memorials. 
It will emphasize the very important consideration, 
underlying all descriptions of monumental work 
for public places, that future generations, having 
no associations in sentiment with the past, will 
judge our monuments from the artistic side. In view 
of the probability of the erection of many more sol- 
diers’ memorials, how very forcible do these con- 
siderations become, and how absolutely foolish it is 
to continue on lines detrimental to the patriot sol- 
dier’s future in respect to monuments in his 
memory, 
RESIDENCE STREETS —V. 
MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION, Continued. 
GUTTERS. 
In appearance, a residence street is most satis- 
factory when the surface of the roadway is uniform 
from one edge to the other. If a gutter is used at 
all, it should conform as nearly as possible in both 
color and grade with the adjacent road. Cobble- 
stone gutters, which have been used quite exten- 
sively, are disagreeable to ride on and really nar- 
row the roadway in appearance and in actual use. 
They are, moreover, hard to take care of unless the 
stones are small and the joints filled in with cement. 
In many cases a depression in the sod will be all 
that is needed to carry away water. With brick, 
wooden, and asphaltum pavements, and macadam 
roadways where the grade is not steep and the 
water has not more than three hundred feet to run 
to reach a catchbasin, no gutter will be needed. 
Where macadam is used, and the grade is so steep 
that abundant rains would cause washing at the 
edge, a gutter may be useful and, I think, should 
be constructed of concrete, laid in a strip at the 
edge of the roadway, having a plane or very slightly 
concave surface of the same color and occupying 
the same position of the surface of the macadam 
which it replaces. In the construction of this gut- 
ter, proper precaution should be taken to prevent its 
destruction by frost, and its thickness should be 
sufficient to bear the usual traffic. With such an 
arrangement, and catchbasins placed in the grass 
plat, the greatest economy is attained since the ef- 
fective roadway is of uniform width. 
CROSSINGS. 
In riding along a street, either in a carriage or 
on a bicycle, nothing is more disagreeable than 
bumping over the stone crossings that are some- 
times used. A roadway should be constructed, 
both as to grade and surface, so that it will be suit- 
able for pedestrians to cross at all times, especially 
near street intersections. A crossing of stone blocks 
generally indicates a bad road, or at least an ex- 
pectation on the part of those who put in the cross- 
ings that the road will be bad. 
MANHOLE COVERS 
make another disagreeable feature in many road- 
ways. Being made of iron and placed on masonrv 
foundations extending below any filling or dis- 
turbed portion of the subgrade, they do not wear 
away or settle as the adjacent pavement is apt to do 
