PARK AND CCA\CTCR\ 
'39 
Taxation of Capital Stock of Cemetery Company.] ] 
The argument was made in the Pennsylvania 
case of Commonwealth V. Hillside Cemetery Com- 
pany, recently before the supreme court of that state 
that where a cemetery company pays a tax upon its 
real estate, and the value of its capital stock is made 
up of the value of the real estate, it would be double 
taxation if it should be held liable to pay a tax on its 
capital stock for the same year. But the court holds 
otherwise, especially as the tax on the real estate 
referred to was a local tax for county and other muni- 
cipal purposes, while the tax on the capital stock was 
a state tax. 
* -» * 
Valuation of Land for Park Purposes. 
Where J and is sought to be taken for a park at 
not too long a time after the first land thereof is se- 
cured, the owners of the land to be taken at the lat- 
er date will be entitled to recover damages for the 
enhanced value resulting from such scheme for a 
park if the original scheme did not contemplate the 
taking of their land for it; but if it did, they will not. 
So holds the supreme judicial court of Massachu- 
setts in the case of Bowditch V. City of Boston. To 
illustrate; It appeared in evidence in this case that 
the city of Boston had in 1891 acquired, for park 
purposes, the estate adjoining on the north that in- 
volved in this action, and that in April, 1892 it took 
for park purposes all of the estates surrounding a 
certain pond, except this particular property and 
two estates immediately adjoining the pond on the 
north. On one of the estates not taken was an ice 
house. It also appeared that this land (and, by 
inference, the remaining estates) was taken in De- 
cember, 1892, only some seven or eight months 
after the taking in April of the same year.. Upon 
this evidence, the court holds that it was competent 
for the jury to find that the scheme or plan, as it e.x- 
isted in April, 1892, contemplated, as a part of it, 
the taking of this land and of the remaining estates 
around the pond, and that the rule as above stated 
was applicable thereto. 
* * * 
A New Wisconsin Cemetery Law. 
The Wisconsin legislature at its last session 
passed the following law: “Section i. The 
trustees of cemetery associations are hereby author- 
ized and empowered to enter into contracts with 
individuals owning or interested in a lot or lots in 
cemeteries or public burial places for the care of 
and preservation of said lot or lots and their appur- 
tenances, under such terms and for such compen- 
sation as may be agreed upon by the parties to the 
contract, and such contract may provide that such 
lot 01 lots shall be forever thereafter exempt from 
all taxes or assessments there after to be levied by 
such association for any purpose whatever. 
Section 2. From and after the time of making 
said contract it shall be the duty of the board of 
trustees of said cemetery association to care for said 
lots as provided for in said contract; which said 
contract shall be reduced to writing, setting forth 
what care said association is to take of said lots 
which shall be forever thereafter exempt from all tax 
or assessment of every name and nature thereafter 
made by said cemetery association for any purpose 
whatever; which said contract duly recorded in the 
records of the association shall be in a book kept 
by said association for that purpose.” 
Pruninc Trees at Transplanting. — It should 
not be forgotten that the branches of trees have va- 
rying degrees of vital power. Strong, vigorous, 
healthy branches would endure unfavorable circum- 
stances when the weaker ones would give way. In 
growing trees, it is always the weaker wood which 
we find among the dead branches. In transplanting 
a tree, we want all the branches that are full of life 
and vigor, and not those that are already half-dead. 
The practice generally followed, therefore, of short- 
ening back the strong, vigorous branches, and leav- 
ing the half-dead ones, is a mistaken course. If all 
the half-dead branches were cutaway, and the stronger 
ones left without shortening, transplanting would oft- 
en be more successful than it is. — Meehan' s Monthly 
for October. 
The world is full of beautiful forms, and every 
moment, in a thousand places, human figures are 
falling into plastic and noble attitudes. Meanwhile, 
to this one art of portrait sculpture, we deny all but 
the most unlovely convention. Well-to-do people, 
in their best clothes, are all cut to one pattern, and 
that the most shapeless and uninteresting that the 
ingenuity of tailors has devised. We may test 
the principle in any country village. A young 
man or a youug woman, of healthy constitution and 
right proportions, busy on a working-day, in work- 
ing clothes, is a graceful and pleasing object. 
Sculpture does not disdain to perpetuate the mower 
in a hay field or the milkmaid beside her cow. They 
are artistic figures, because easy, natural and ap- 
propriate. But we see them on Sunday hampered 
by the stiffness of their best clothes, and all the 
charm is gone . — Edmund Gossc. 
The French government has issued invitations to 
the nations to appoint representatives in the matter 
of the Universal Exposition to be held in Paris in 
the year 1900. National pride will inspire the P'rench 
people to great things for this event. 
