164 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
COURT DECISION ON PROHIBITING INTERMENTS 
(Continued.) 
S. W. Henderson testified that he owns 
property on Main street, near the corner of 
Twenty-ninth, on which he has conducted a 
grocery for twenty-five years, and who 
owns property on Twenty-ninth street im- 
mediately opposite the cemetery, on which 
he has lived for several years, and who 
was also a signer of both the petitions al- 
ready mentioned, although he had forgotten 
the fact, and at whose store meetings upon 
the subject were held, although he had also 
forgotten that, and who has been trying to 
get the cemetery closed up in order to get 
the streets improved, “smelt things.” He 
said: “Why, just the other day I thought 
I smelled something. I often question my- 
self where that smell comes from.” He 
thought “it must be some sewers, or some- 
thing like that, or somebody must be open- 
ing a vault, or something like that” ; he 
thought “somebody was opening a vault or 
cleaning one out” ; he had been smelling 
things “for six or seven years”; that it did 
not seem to him like the smell of the pack- 
ing houses. He said the smell came from 
the north and northeast. 
A. F. Lawrence, who had lived in Union 
Cemetery for five years, and still lives 
there, and who had a quarrel with the su- 
perintendent, worked in the cemetery for a 
month about four years ago. He had “no- 
ticed a smell or scent whenever it is 
damp.” But he still continues to live in the 
cemetery and proposes to stay there. 
L. S. Bender worked in Union Cemetery 
three years ago for about three months, 
digging graves. When asked if he observed 
a stench or smell in the graveyard while 
he was working there, he said: “Well, it 
seemed as though at times I would, yes.” 
When asked if the smell was like the smell 
of the packing houses, he said he didn’t 
“know as it was — something similar to, you 
might say, in some ways ; in some ways 
it was and in some ways it was not.” 
“Joe” Johnson, an attorney, also went 
through the cemetery twice ; one time with 
Mr. Ward and Mr. Jesserich and others — - 
in August, before the trial. He says when 
they went through “there were noxious 
smells.” 
He lived for twenty-four years at 2917 
Baltimore avenue. This is one street west 
of Main street. He moved away October 
12, 1910. He said his wife was sick all 
the time they lived there, and since they 
moved away she had gained fifteen pounds 
in six months. He said some of his neigh- 
bors had been sick for years, and they laid 
it to the cemetery. He did not know 
whether that was true or not. 
C. K. Bowen, a photographer, took a 
number of photographs in Union Cemetery, 
as evidenced by Exhibits 22 to 26, inclusive, 
in evidence. In doing so he was over the 
cemetery grounds and knows that the pho- 
tographs correctly, portray conditions in 
said cemetery. He saw a portion of a cof- 
fin in the cemetery grounds, as well as a 
collection of human bones collected from 
the surface thereof; saw pools of water, 
over which there was scum and green stuff 
which had a terrible odor ; and on two 
acres of the cemetery the graves and head- 
stones thereof were as close together as 
could be — seemed to be touching one an- 
other. Some headstones were decayed, oth- 
ers down on the ground ; some of the 
graves were sunken a foot or two, and in 
at least a half dozen places in the potter’s 
field, rubbish, tombstones and headboards 
were piled up ; that part of the cemetery 
in the district of the potter’s field and west 
of it showed no evidence of care. 
That he took the photographs, introduced 
in evidence, showing the physical condition 
of the cemetery. That he had been a wit- 
ness for the city in a thousand cases, in 
which his works of art were used as evi- 
dence (and from this we suppose he ac- 
quired the name “Artist” Bowen, by which 
name he is referred to many times through- 
out the record). 
That he wasi instructed “to make the 
situation the best of my ability,” and that 
he obeyed instructions. That he furnished 
one of his assistants with a long weed, to 
resemble a fishing pole, to which he tied 
a string, and placed said assistant at the 
edge of one of the pools in the attitude of 
fishing, which is shown by one of the pho- 
tographs offered in evidence. 
That in order to please his employer he 
arranged the headstones to suit his own no- 
tions, which appears in one of the pictures. 
That he “kicked” out of the ground a 
piece of a board which was said to have 
once been part of a casket, which was done 
to make it appear in the picture. 
That he gathered together a small col- 
lection of what were said to be human 
bones, which were offered in evidence; that 
he picked them out of the ground with a 
little stick. 
Dr. Le Roy Dibble, a physician and sur- 
geon with forty-twd years’ practice, had 
been one of the sanitary officers of the 
state of Michigan and a prison inspector 
for nine years, and had been twice through 
Union Cemetery; saw human bones scat- 
tered on top of the ground. He observed 
the drainage of the cemetery and the pools 
which being filled with germs, might be 
carried by mosquitoes, rats and mice, and 
be the cause of disease and distributed over 
a considerable area, and with conditions as 
described in the potter’s field, if the ground 
became thoroughly saturated, would be a 
danger always, and that the existence of 
stenches and smells was a warning of an 
unsanitary condition and a danger. 
Dr. Walter M. Cross, a physician and 
surgeon and a chemist by profession, is the 
city chemist of Kansas City. He testified 
that pools of water covered with a scum 
might be the cause of the spread of dis- 
ease; that disease germs might be spread 
by vermin, flies, rats, etc. ; that conditions 
observed in the potter’s field, considering 
the drainage of the cemetery, is an unsan- 
itary condition and the probable source of 
the spread of disease; that germs which 
have once destroyed human life are prob- 
ably thousands of times more virulent than 
before. 
Dr. Carl A. Jackson, a physician and sur- 
geon, was a member of the lower house of 
the Common Council of Kansas City and 
chairman of the Sanitary and Hospital 
Committee. He testified that germs are 
carried by vermin and mosquitoes. 
J. D. Bateman lived near the cemetery 
and had been in the cemetery. A house and 
barn appeared therein. Hay was stacked 
within the cemetery. Grass had grown 
long enough to be cut for hay. He made 
measurements of distances to top of cas- 
kets from the surface of the ground which 
averaged from three feet to sixteen inches. 
Joseph S. Chick, Jr., whose father came 
to Kansas City in 1836, and had buried 
many members of his family in Union 
Cemeter>. assisted in moving bodies of the 
family from the cemetery and said that the 
caskets were very muddy. 
A. F. Lawrence testified for defendants 
that he had been living in the cemetery for 
five years and worked there for a time, 
and that in digging graves in the potter’s 
field they sometimes found bones in the 
bottom of the newly dug graves. 
H. A. Close testified for defendants that 
he had been a grave digger in the cemetery 
for more than five years and still worked 
there; said that in the potter’s field they 
struck human bones once in a while when 
digging graves, and in such cases the bones 
so found were always put in the bottom of 
the graves before the new coffin was put 
in. A place was excavated to accommo- 
date them. He never saw any human bones 
there on the surface; only saw them where 
he was digging, and then he put them back. 
L. S. Bender, another witness for the 
defendants, who worked in the Union Cem- 
etery as grave digger about three years 
before the trial, testified that when in dig- 
ging graves they found bones, they col- 
lected them together, then dug down a lit- 
tle deeper at once end of the grave and 
put them in that excavation and put the 
new box on top. This was in the potter’s 
field. But the pieces of coffin so found are 
not reburied — they are burned. 
Defendants also introduced evidence 
whose purpose was to prove that the cem- 
etery did not receive from its owners 
proper attention ; that it was not as trim 
and neat as it should have been, and that 
its appearance suffered from want of 
proper care. One witness testified that he 
was there in March, and the grass looked 
as if it had not been cut for some time. 
He had only been in the cemetery twice. 
