A legal fight covering nearly five years 
by the minority stockholders of the Pine- 
lawn Cemetery Co., New York City, to 
compel the officers and directors of the 
company to account on the ground that 
the officers have devoted themselves to 
selling their own stock rather than ceme- 
tery lots, resulted in a decision recently by 
Supreme Court Justice Gingerich in favor 
of the stockholders. 
On a charge of embezzlement, T. N. 
Campbell, superintendent of Mt. Hope 
Cemetery, Carthage, Mo., is being held to 
await trial. 
On January 6 State Senator Bagley, of 
Boston, introduced a bill in the Massachu- 
setts legislature, on petition of proprietors 
of Pine Grove Cemetery of Milford, Mass., 
that all personal property held by cities, 
towns, religious societies or cemeteries for 
the perpetual care of graves, shall be ex- 
empt from taxation, but the act shall not 
apply to cemetery corporations who divide 
their profits and income among their stock- 
holders. This is the result of the recent State 
Supreme Court decision. In the same con- 
nection there have been paid into the city 
treasury, under protest, $18,040 as personal 
taxes levied by the Boston assessors on 
the Forest Hill Cemetery, and $3,819.56 as 
personal taxes on the Woodlawn Cemetery. 
This is the first time in the history of Bos- 
ton that cemetery property has been taxed 
by the assessors. On January 28 the 
question was discussed at the state house 
by the Committee on Taxation. Two bills 
have been introduced, both covering the 
funds of every cemetery in the state, and 
each has a second section asking that any 
tax that has been levied may be abated. 
There is trouble in the Oak Park Cem- 
etery Association of Chicago. The direct- 
ors have recently taken legal steps to as- 
certain the details of an alleged appropria- 
tion of their choicest lots by the former 
secretary and treasurer of the association. 
Another incident showing what an up- 
hill matter it is to advance in cemetery 
improvement to meet modern ideas is that 
connected with the effort of the superintend- 
ent and authorities of the SS. Peter and 
Paul Catholic Cemetery, St. Louis, Mo., to 
do away with grave mounds. Recently an- 
other section was added to the improved 
grounds and no mounds was the order. 
Protests of lot owners immediately came 
forth and meetings have been held to com- 
pel a return to this very nearly obsolete 
fashion of finishing graves. 
Lot holders in the Methodist burying 
ground, Philadelphia road, Baltimore, Md., 
recently held a mass meeting to discuss 
plans to prevent the trustees of the ceme- 
tery from disposing of the property. Those 
protesting say that if the governing body 
takes any further steps toward disposing 
of the property the case will be taken to 
court. The protest is caused by the re- 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
fusal of the trustees to provide lots else- 
where for the bodies buried in the ceme- 
tery. They agreed to open the graves, 
take up the bodies and move them to any 
other places. 
The handsome new entrance at Riverside 
Cemetery, Dowagiac, Mich., has just been 
completed and adds much to the attractive- 
ness of this spot. The entrance is com- 
posed of four stone pillars, two about 
eight feet high and two about sixteen feet 
high with a solid stone wall extending to 
the sides of the driveway. At the base of 
this wall cement has been laid to the width 
of about a foot. Along the walk to the 
cemetery a handsome iron fence has been 
put up and with the beautiful shade trees 
along the drive the entrance is all that one 
could wish for. 
Intense interest is shown by residents of 
Nassau County, N. Y., in the Maloney bill, 
which if it passes the state senate will 
deal a deathblow to the project to estab- 
lish a great mausoleum at Merrick, L. I. 
The bill has passed the house by a vote 
of 88 to 20, but some opposition is ex- 
pected in the senate. However, some forty 
petitions are in circulation among the tax- 
payers which will be presented to the su- 
pervisors at their next meeting in the 
event of the bill being defeated in the 
senate. 
A cemetery trust is claimed to exist in 
Toronto, Canada, and the legislature is to 
be asked to put all the cemetery trusts un- 
der the control of the Ontario Railway 
Board. 
The Mt. Washington Cemetery Associa- 
tion, Cincinnati, O., filed a statement re- 
cently refusing to take a bequest of $200 
given it by Deborah A. Langdon in her will. 
The will gave the association $200 and 
directed that it be invested and the proceeds 
used for the graves of herself and husband. 
The association stated that it had adopted 
a rule refusing to take bequests of this 
nature because the trustees serve without 
pay and did not wish to be responsible for 
the money. 
There seems little doubt but that the bill 
in the Massachusetts Legislature framed 
to give the money earned by public ceme- 
teries back to the cemeteries rather than 
to the general treasury funds of cities will 
be favorably reported. 
A profitable speculation in cemeteries, in- 
volving property in five states worth 
$4,000,000, was revealed by a suit brought 
in the New York Supreme Court. Francis 
E. Baker and Reese Carpenter, the parties 
to the litigation, six years ago formed a 
partnership to get control of graveyards 
and then to divide them into building lots 
if they did not pay for burial purposes. 
Baker, who brings this action for a disso- 
lution of the partnership and an account- 
ing, declares that fortune was in sight for 
the promoters. In opposing Baker’s ap- 
plication Carpenter holds that if any agree- 
19 
ment existed between them it was illegal, 
because made for the purpose of freezing 
out other stockholders in the corporations 
acquired. The court reserved decision. 
Dewey, Kan., needs a cemetery. The 
only cemetery near at hand is a privately 
owned burial ground some two miles north. 
It is stated that no attempt has been 
made to tax the invested funds of the 
Harmony Grove and St. Mary’s Cemetery 
Corporations of Salem, Mass., notwith- 
standing the decision of the Supreme Court 
in the Miford Cemetery case. 
According to its local press, Spencer, 
Mass., appears to have lost track of two 
funds which were evidently intended by 
the donors to be kept in trust forever. 
One is the Drury fund, now amounting to 
$1,166.95, which originated in 1880, the in- 
come from which is to be devoted to the 
care of aged worthy persons ; the other is 
the old cemetery fund, now $4,138.38, 
which was instituted in 1872, the income 
to keep the burying ground in repair. 
The lot owners of Cedar Hill Cemetery, 
St. John, N. B., are seeking incorporation. 
San Francisco has struck a snag in its 
work of changing the old free burial 
ground, the City Cemetery, into Lincoln 
Park. The Italian Beneficial Society is 
offering a strong resistance unless the city 
will bear the expense of transferring the 
bodies, the cost of which is estimated at 
$ 10 , 000 . 
Speculation in cemetery lots is a question 
at present troubling the city officials of 
Elgin, 111. The fact has been discovered 
that the city had probably been swindled 
out of several thousand dollars by “ceme- 
tery lot speculators,” by the repurchasing 
of lots by the city in the old Elgin City 
Cemetery from the original purchasers. An 
offer to sell a lot in the old cemetery for 
$21, for which only $10 was paid, brought 
it about. 
The municipality of Lewistown, Mont., 
will, in all probability, shortly take over the 
cemetery owned by the Lewistown Ceme- 
tery. Association, reimbursing that organi- 
zation to the extent of $1,500 for perma- 
nent improvements made. The unsold lots 
and other realty on the present selling 
basis will bring in ultimately, it is esti- 
mated in a preliminary report, about 
$30,000, so that the association’s object in 
seeking the transfer is not gain, it is as- 
serted, but to have the cemetery managed 
and handled to the best advantage. 
The Greenlawn Cemetery Association, 
Springfield, Mo., having 'failed to make 
proper reports to the Secretary of State 
relative to capital stock and other facts re- 
quired by law, will compel them to pay de- 
fault judgments in three fines of $50 each. 
At a recent meeting of the Executive 
Committee of Riverside Cemetery, Berk- 
ley, Va., Mr. W. W. Robertson was unani- 
mously requested to accept the general su- 
