for shipment by disinfecting and wrapping as above, 
may be placed in a strong coffin or casket, encased 
in an air-tight zinc, copper or tin lined box, all 
joints and seams hermetically soldered. 
Will Mr. Halladay kindly verify this 
statement by referring it to the excellent 
undertaker who is president of his com- 
pany and ask him how many “explosions” 
he has heard in the bodies he has shipped 
in hermetically sealed caskets? We should 
also call attention to the Indiana state law 
requiring that crypts be hermetically sealed. 
These “explosions” in Indiana will be 
awaited with much interest, and perhaps 
may some day be heard in Wisconsin, 
when a similar law is passed in that state. 
Referring to the next paragraph, we 
are quite aware, Mr. Halladay, that em- 
balmers are examined and licensed by the 
state, but it is a fact that will be verified 
by any good undertaker that a large pro- 
portion of the bodies buried are not per- 
fectly embalmed. In fact, we should like 
to quote on this point no less an authority 
than Mr. George L. Thomas, president of 
the Wisconsin Mausoleum Construction 
Co., who once said, if the Milwaukee Free 
Press correctly quotes him : “Embalmers 
are licensed, but the examination they are 
subjected to is not as stringent as it should 
be, as when a licensed embalmer has cared 
for the body of a person dead of con- 
tagious disease that body is eligible to 
shipment to any part of the state. If the 
embalmer does not know his business thor- 
oughly, the body is likely to be shipped 
in such a condition that others will be 
exposed to the disease. Undertakers who 
are not embalmers may care for these 
bodies, though not ship them.” 
We quote further from Mr. Thomas Da- 
vidson, formerly secretary of the Confer- 
ence of Embalmers’ Examining Boards of 
North America: “You would be sur- 
prised to know the number of embalmers 
(?) throughout these United States who 
are doing nothing but cavity embalming, 
and not always that, who point with pride 
when you enter their office to a beautifully 
engraved and elaborately signed diploma 
from an embalming .school, and alongside 
of it one or two state licenses, giving 
them the privilege and purporting to show 
the public that they are expert embalmers 
and masters of bacteriology and sanitary 
science, where, if called upon to be com- 
pelled to embalm a body by arterial in- 
jection, they send to their neighboring 
town for a licensed embalmer, or, if they 
try to do the work, utterly fail and the 
body goes back on them.” That perfect 
circulation of “formalduhide” (presumably 
“formaldehyde”), then, is seldom obtained. 
Concerning your kind invitation to visit 
this model home for the dead, Mr. Halla- 
day, even if we should do this, it would 
be necessary for us to have the informa- 
tion asked for in our letter above before 
we could write intelligently concerning the 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
construction of your building or your meth- 
ods of managing and caring for it, which 
are just as important to the crypt-buying 
public as the construction. In giving suf- 
ficient praise to this wonderful building 
it would be particularly helpful for us to 
have a signed copy of the endorsement of 
the “Washington authorities” who have 
“passed and approved” this structure as 
“the most perfect construction of its 
kind within the borders of the United 
States.” 
For example, how could we judge of 
your crypt construction without a study 
of your valuable patented features, or how 
could we judge whether it were possible 
to build big mausoleums as thoroughly as 
private ones unless you tell us how your 
construction resembles or excels the con- 
struction of private mausoleums. 
The questions of endowment and man- 
agement are fundamental from the pub- 
lic’s point of view. 
We had no idea that these simple ques- 
tions asking for fundamental information 
were going to be so formidable for the 
builders of the “most perfect construction 
of its kind” to answer. In view of the 
fact that they are, we should suggest to 
monument dealers who are fighting com- 
munity mausoleums of not nearly so per- 
fect construction that these questions be 
publicly submitted to all mausoleum pro- 
moters and the answers carefully analyzed. 
We should be glad to hear from other 
mausoleum promoters who should care to 
answer, verbatim and seriatim, the ques- 
tions propounded above. 
THE TENEMENT MAUSOLEUM IN 
THE SMALL TOWN. 
By L. M. Wilcox. 
While it is true that some towns have 
accepted the tenement mausoleum after a 
perfunctory and unskilled investigation, I 
have yet to learn where they have proven 
safe or sanitary as burial receptacles. Too 
little thought has been given such essen- 
tials as permanency, care and repair, re- 
sponsibility for construction and main- 
tenance. Few people realize that mortuary 
structures are supposed to last forever, 
which is a long time, longer than fifty 
years — yes, longer than a century. Any 
mausoleum builder or cemetery superin- 
tendent knows that twenty-five years will 
find the average community mausoleum 
very much in need of repairs. 
The designing, planning and construction 
of the smallest mausoleum known requires 
the attention of especially fitted architects, 
men who have made such work a life 
study, men who know the requirements of 
everlasting burial structure. Ordinary res- 
idences or business houses are wholly un- 
like mausoleums in that they are occu- 
pied by life and have heating appliances 
and receive constant attention and repair 
until ready to be torn down and replaced 
59 
with new structures. Community mauso- 
leums are absolutely different; they are 
unoccupied by life, full of frost in the 
winter and dampness in the summer, have 
no heating plants and never, in my opinion, 
have been properly ventilated. This alone 
will cause more deterioration and decay, 
with need for repairs, than is usually found 
in an occupied building. 
Who is to pay for such repairs and the 
necessary care on a semi-publicly owned 
building for burial purposes? The pro- 
moters will tell you that they leave an en- 
dowment fund sufficiently adequate. Let us 
analyze this. They leave $5 or $10 for 
each crypt, which will amount to $1,500 
to $3,000 if there are 300 sold. This 
amount at 4 per cent interest would make 
a total revenue of $60 to $120 per year. 
A munificent sum to take care of a struc- 
ture of this kind ! The average endow- 
ment provided would not supply decent 
janitor service, to say nothing of repairs 
and reconstruction. 
I have known of five such buildings 
needing a new roof within three years, 
also numerous other repairs, which com- 
pletely exhausted the endowment fund in 
a very short time. 
Is there really any legitimate demand 
for community mausoleums? Who is back 
of them ? Are the cemetery trustees in 
favor of them? It seems not, in most 
cases. 
When we have beautiful burial grounds, 
carefully managed, is it possible that the 
people will permit entire strangers to come 
into their midst and establish this doubtful 
form of interment for revenue only? The 
whole thing is an absurdity, and even 
though there should be some demand for 
a public mausoleum, it should be built 
carefully and properly within the cemetery 
grounds, under the supervision and respon- 
sibility of the legally appointed trustees. 
The trustees of Ferncliff Cemetery, Spring- 
field, O., were approached many times with- 
in the last few years by certain firms 
asking permission to promote such burial 
schemes within the grounds, but have al- 
ways refused. The present crowd of pro- 
moters made threats that they would pur- 
chase a lot near the cemetery and pro- 
mote the thing regardless. After being 
turned down by the trustees they visited 
every funeral director in the city in their 
attempt to get someone to lend aid and in- 
fluence — even visited some of the monu- 
ment firms. It is public rumor that they 
succeeded in interesting only one, and if 
statements are true in other towns, the 
inducement is much more pecuniary than 
the undertaker of promoters would care 
to acknowledge. 
That such methods are used has been 
made public in council meetings in the 
town of Princeton, 111., where an under- 
taker named Phelps acknowledged receiv- 
