PARK AND CEMETERY. 
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Cemetery Improvement. 
Fairhaven, Mass. 
Editor Park and Cemetery. 
Dear SIR: — To trouble your readers with the history of 
Riverside cemetery would be to tell once more the oft told story 
of the rural or the suburban cemetery: suffice it to say, that near 
the middle of the present century the people of Fairhaven found 
it necesssary to provide themselves with a new burial ground: a 
corporation was formed; a beautiful site of about 12 acres was 
purchased, laid out, and donated by a generous citizen. 
Upon the opening of the cemetery, lot holders assuming all 
the rights of individual proprietorship removed the bodies of 
deceased friends from other cemeteries and interred them upon 
their own lots in the new cemetery without the slightest regard 
to future requirements as to the keeping of records. 
Riverside cemetery is essentially a village cemetery, it is ad- 
mirably laid out to suit the contour of the land. For the mos { 
part the paths cross the sections in parallel lines 33 feet apart, 
one rod being considered a sufficient amount of land for a fam- 
ily lot. One part of the cemetery, the designer, in order to de- 
velop the natural beauty of the landscape, arranged in smaller 
sections of irregular shape; these lots were generally taken by the 
wealthier inhabitants and thousands of dollars were spent in en- 
closing them with iron fences, which, although they are gradu- 
ally landing their way to the scrap iron depot, would seem at the 
time of their erection to be a necessity, as at that time the neg- 
lect by some neighbor to replace the bars of the rail fence might 
result in the cemetery being invaded by cattle, while stories are 
often told of huckleberry gathering, quail hunting and other 
sacrilegious and lawless expeditions in the cemetery. 
The earlier settled parts of the cemetery are somewhat over- 
crowded by well grown arbor vitae trees, which the lot holders 
in ignorance of the habits of growth of the arbor vitae planted 
freely and allowed them to take their own sweet way. In these 
parts of the cemetery we sometimes find the remains of worn 
out rose bushes and shrubs growing in a border now overgrown 
with weeds and grass, showing where some have, in days gone by 
tried to make a little paradi;e of their last resting place, the 
owners have gone by now as well as the days, the shrubs they 
planted still struggle to hold their own and the lily-of- the- valley 
runs riot over the immediate neighborhood. 
The above description may doubtless be adapted to numer- 
ous rural or suburban cemeteries, but the main question, which 
is before and not behind us and which particularly concerns the 
working superintendent is, what can be done at this late period 
to correct so far as possible the mistakes of former years and to 
meet the requirements of the times? 
It is in the hope rather to obtain, than to impart advice to 
my fellow working superintendents, that I intrude upon your 
columns, but I may add that during the past winter the grounds 
committee with the superintendent have made a special effort 
to interest individual lot holders in the care of their lots and have 
met with tolerable success. T. White. 
* * * 
Removal of Bodies from Unpaid for Lots. 
Mr. G. W. Riely, secretary and superintendent of Grove 
Hill Cemetery, Shelbyville, Ky., writes as follows in reply to the 
question in the July issue concerning burial in an unpaid for lot 
and subsequent refusal to pay for same: “I some years since 
suggested to cemetery companies to put the matter in their 
charters and they would have no trouble in removing the dead 
and reselling the lots. I send you a copy of our laws and rules 
in which you will find the following which covers the case: 
“The said board of Trustees shall also have full power to en* 
ter upon any lot or lots within the said Cemetery Grounds, for 
which the holder has neglected or refused to pay for more than 
one year, and remove therefrom the remains which may have 
been interred thereon: Provided, That before such entry and 
removal, the parties interested shall be duly notified that such 
action will be had if the purchase money for the lot or lots and 
the expenses incurred thereon are not paid within one month 
from date of service of such notices; and provided further , that 
the remains so removed shall be interred by the Trustees or 
their agents on a plot of ground set apart by the Board of Trus- 
tees for general burial purposes; and the lots so entered upon, 
and all other lots in the Cemetery of said Company not paid for 
within one year after purchase, shall revert to the said Corpora- 
tion and be subject to resale by the Board of Trustees.” 
LEGAL. 
EVADES THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION. 
Appeal was taken, in the case of the Forest Cemetery As- 
sociation against Constans and others, from an order appointing 
a committee in proceedings instituted under the provisions of 
section 3096 of the Minnesota General Statutes of 1894 to ac- 
quire by condemnation land for the enlargement of a cemetery. 
But the supreme court of Minnesota holds that such an order is 
not appealable. The reason it gives is that the statute expressly 
provides that the decision of the court upon the report of the 
committee shall have the effect of a judgment, so that, upon an 
appeal from the judgment, any intermediate order, such as this 
one, necessarily affecting the judgment may be reviewed. In 
other words, the court says that the order does not involve the 
merits of the action; it does not, in effect, determine the action, 
nor is it a final order affecting a substantial right in a special 
proceeding. It simply appoints a committee to examine and re- 
port as to the merits of the petition, and the damages to be 
awarded, and is no more appealable than an order appointing a 
referee. But it was suggested, on the argument before the su- 
preme court, that inasmuch as the question of the constitution- 
ality of the statute authorizing cemetery associations to exercise 
the power of eminent domain was an important public question 
the appeal ought to be disposed of on its merits. This led the 
supreme court to further state that it, for obvious reasons, ought 
not to decide any appeal upon the merits when it is clear that 
there is no case before the court, especially when so grave a 
question as the constitutionality of a statute is presented. This 
leaves the constitutional question an open one, in Minnesota, for 
future litigation. 
* * * 
THE POISON IVY CASE. 
Mrs. Barbara E. George, who was awarded $3,875 for damages 
received from poison ivy while placing flowers on the grave of 
her husband in Cypress Hills Cemetery. Brooklyn, New York, 
had the judgment reversed on appeal of the corporation before 
the Appellate Court. The suit was for $10,000. Judges 
Goodrich, Cullen and Bartlett held against Judges Woodward 
and Hatch that the verdict should be set aside. Judges Bartlett 
and Cullen expressed the opinion that corporations are expected 
to exercise reasonable care. They questioned the power of the 
courts to decide whether ivy is poisonous, since it affects persons 
differently. Judge Woodward held that as poison ivy is a 
detriment to public health, and the cemetery authorities were 
responsible for the welfare of those having a right in the ceme- 
tery, the judgment should stand. The defendant corporation 
was sustained and a new trial ordered. 
