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PARK AND CCMCTCRY 
CEMETERY NOTES. 
The most costly tomb in existence is said to be that which 
was erected to the memory of Mohammed. The diamonds and 
rubies used in the decorations are worth $10,000,000. 
* * * 
•‘1 don’t say that a man ought not to smoke a cigar in a cem- 
etery; but he ought to hide the stump. 
“Peanut shells and banana peels are an abomination on a 
well kept lawn,” says J. S. Goodge, superintendent Oak Hill 
Cemetery, Evansville, Ind. 
* * * 
The old custom of having the sexton at the burial drop a 
part of a shovel full of ground upon the coffin as the minister re- 
peats “ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” is too antiquated and re- 
volting, and we hope to see it discontinued. It certainly can 
give no real lesson and can be anything but agreeable to the 
mourners and their friends, to hear a shovel full of dirt rattling 
down as a last memory of the departed.— Cedar Falls Gazette. 
* -X- * 
The selectmen of the town of Palmer, Mass., have given to 
the trustees of the Palmer Cemetery Association, control of the 
Depot village cemetery for this year. A superintendenthasbeen 
chosen and rules and regulatione laid down for the improvement 
and care of the place, which will result in a great change if car- 
ried out, which it is the intention to do. Much good would re- 
sult if similar action were taken in other places having cemete- 
ries controlled by the authorities. 
# # * 
Mr. George Scott, of Boston, has placed in the hands of the 
trustees of Edgewood cemetery, Nashua, N. H., funds for the 
perpetual care of his lot in that cemetery. At the same timehe 
also donated a generous sum for the perpetual care of the grave 
of Benjamin Abbott, a drummer boy in the Revolution, who lies 
buried there. Abbott was the drummer boy at the execution of 
Major Andre. Mr. Scott was no relation of Abbotts, but gave 
the money from purely patriotic sentiment upon learning of the 
burial of a Revolutionary hero there, a worthy e.xample which 
should lead to similar donations for like purposes. 
* * * 
Percy Alden, head of Mansfield House University Settle- 
ment, London, relates some pitiable experiences in his relations 
with the poor. The following displays some conditions of family 
life; “On one occasion 1 was calling upon one poor mother, who 
was laboring under the burden of bringing up twelve lively 
youngsters who had come into the world in quick succession year 
after year. She was complaining bitterly, and was envying her 
neighbor across the street, all of whose children had early suc- 
cumbed to the ravages of poverty and ill treatment. T tell you 
what it is, Mr. Alden,’ said she, grimly, T ain’t never had no 
graveyard luck like her.’ 
* * *■ 
To prevent as far as possible the duplication of monuments, 
and so protect existing interests, and the appearance of the 
cemetery, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, requires both the lot 
owners and contractors to sign the following statement which is 
attached to the design subsmitted lo the superintendent; 
“So far as we know the monument which is shown by the ac- 
companying design is not a duplicate of any monument now in 
Graceland cemetery. 
Lot -owner. 
Contractor.” 
* * » 
Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, Conn., is undergo- 
ing extensive improvements under a proposed outlay of $35,000 
In the past, nature has been allowed to run riot with the resul 
that much clearing up has been required. The North avenue 
stone archway which was built originally from the receipts of one 
of Jenny Lind’s concerts over forty years ago, has been renova- 
ted. A new main entrance is to be constructed together with a 
chapel, for which the surroundings have been prepared. Moun- 
tain Glove cemetery is the third rural burial ground in 
lire country, and in recent times has received some very fine 
monuments. It contains eighty acres, and 10,000 bodies have 
been buried within its borders. 
* * -Sf- 
Under the head of “Funerals” in the Rules and Regulations 
governing the cemetery of “The Holy Name,” Jersey City, N.J.. 
recently issued, appears the following, which speaks for itself; 
“Christian hope and tender resignation ought to prevail at the 
burial of the dead. Christian thought on such an occasion 
should instinctively dwell on the immortal soul, not on the cor- 
ruptible body. Hence the simpler the burial of the dead, the 
more Christian, and the more edifying it will be. The pomp 
and display so common at funerals spring from mistaken respect 
for the dead, although intended as signs of honor and affection; 
hence the long line of carriages and the profuse display of flow- 
ers. Profound sorrow avoids show. Simplicity in funeral ar- 
rangements is therefore to be recommended. Let the casket be 
modest, the carriages few, and let flowers be omitted, except in 
the burial of children.” 
* * * 
The perpetual care fund of Woodlawn Cemetery, Winona, 
Minn., now amounts to $i 1,816.10, having been increased the 
past year by $3,423.05. The number of burials for the year 
were 161, giving a total number of interments of 4280. The in- 
crease in the perpetual care fund of $3,423.05 during the year, 
while receipts from the sale of lots were only some $1,000. is due 
to a number of lot owners, whose lots were purchased before the 
new form of deed was adopted, having made “permanent care'’ 
contracts by which, in consideration of the payment of ten cents 
per square foot, the association agrees to perpetually care for 
the lots without further cost to the owners The small returns 
from sale of lots is due to two causes. First, although the popu- 
lation has increased very greatly the number of interments in 
Woodlawn has not materially increased. Second; when 
the cemetery was first started a number of citizens were induced 
to buy lots at the very low price of fifteen cents per square foot 
in order to raise funds to open the cemetery. And a large 
number of lots were sold which were not required for imme- 
diate use, and which were never used by the original purchasers. 
These comprise many of the most desirable lots in the cemetery. 
* * 
The following curious notes on Chinese funeral and burial* 
customs have been gathered by the Chicago Daily News: 
China is called one vast cemetery. The face of the whole 
country is dotted with grass-covered hummocks — in the rice 
fields, open lots and wayside inclosures. No farm is so small 
that it cannot afford one, and no hill too high. They vary in 
size and shape. Near Shanghai they are shapeless mounds of 
earth 6 by 3 and 3 feet high. The coffins had been put on the 
ground and covered with dirt. 
Near Soochow the graves are brick affairs, round topped 
and square at the ends. Some have door- ways, and look like 
bake ovens. 
The farmers bury their dead in their rice or cotton fields or 
among their mulberry trees, and the poor buy or lease ground 
from their neighbors It is claimed that at a change of dynasty 
all graves are razed and the ground pre-empted for the living. 
Travelers see scores of tombs worn by the elements so as to 
show the coffin ends or skulls; great earthen jars containing re- 
interred bones; bare coffins set out in rice fields because the 
mourners were too poor to bury them and tens of thousands of 
coffins covered over merely with thatched straw. 
The grand tombs of the mandarins take up half a mile of land 
with their arches, steps and carvings. 
