212 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Authority to Disinter Bodies. 
A trial of the greatest interest and importance to 
Cem.etery officials has just been concluded in the 
Circuit Court, Chicago, before Judge Baker. 
In the year 1891 Mr. C. C. Cushing a resident 
of Hinsdale, a suburb of Chicago, lost a child with 
diphtheria, the body being interred in a lot be- 
longing to his brother-in-law, in Oak Forest Ceme- 
tery, of which Mr. G. K. Wright is the superin- 
tendent. After the remains had been buried about 
a year, Mr. Cushing desired to have them removed 
to his family lot in Oakwoods, Chicago. Mr. 
Wright refused permission stating that he had writ- 
ten the State Board of Health and had received a 
reply, saying that as the body had died of conta- 
gious disease it could not be removed to another 
burial ground. 
Mr. Cushing then took the matter into his own 
hands, and had the body disinterred at night, put into 
a wagon and taken across country to Oakwoods 
Cemetery, where they arrived early next day. The 
superintendent of the latter cemetery refused ad- 
mission of the body to that burial ground and it 
was carted off and secreted in the city. The Supt. 
of Oak Forest upon discovery of the removal, went 
into the city and interviewed the Commissioner of 
Health for Chicago. That official promptly sent 
out police officers to try and locate the body with a 
view of having it buried. The father of the child 
had in the mean time left the city. Upon his re- 
turn in a few days Mr. Wright had him arrested and 
taken before a local Justice of the peace who dis- 
charged him. Mr. Cushing then lost another child 
by diphtheria and upon application to the Chicago 
Health officers for the necessary burial permit, was 
also given one for the interment of the body which 
had been removed from Hinsdale. The Health of- 
ficers claiming it was necessary to inter as quickly 
as possible in Oakwoods, the nearest burial ground. 
Mr. Cushing then sued Mr. Wright for malicious 
prosecution claiming $25,000 damages. The trial 
occupied the court nearly three days and was ably 
argued on both sides. 
Counsel for plantiff, maintained that a burial 
lot once deeded became the private property of the 
owner, to do as he pleased with. It being compe- 
tent for such owner to go to that lot either by day 
or by night, and if desired by the lot owner any 
body interred upon that lot could be removed by 
the next of kin without the consent of the cemetery 
people, quoting many legal decisions in support 
of his argument; some dating back to 1845. The 
gist of these cases was that no body could be dis- 
interred without authority; plantiff contending that 
the next of kin was the authority. 
Defendant’s counsel argued that such an inter- 
pretation of the law would be monstrous, and that 
if the court so decided there would be nothing to 
prevent ignorant persons, particularly foreigners, 
from digging up at any time the bodies of their re- 
latives that might have died from small-pox 
or other foul disease, and remove them to any 
part of the country. 
Judge Baker before giving the case to the jury, 
said that cemetery corporations being sanctioned by 
the State, were the representatives of the State, 
and therefore the legal custodians of the dead, and 
that burial lots were subject to the rules and regu- 
lations made for the good government by the cem- 
etery officials. 
The learned judge cited many cases both in 
England and America where the next of kin had 
claimed the authority to remove bodies and had 
been decided against the relatives. Authority, his 
honor said, was not only the next of kin but also 
the state representatives, the cemetery officials. The 
latter having no more right to disturb a body with 
out the permission of the next of kin than the next 
of kin had without the consent of the cemetery of- 
ficers. In any case of dispute it was easy to apply 
to the courts for a mandamus. The court instruct- 
ed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. 
This decision will answer the queries propound- 
ed at many of the conventions of the cemetery Su- 
perintendents as to rights of removal. B. L. 
CARPET BEDDING. — The Style of gardening by 
which many variegated-leaved plants are arranged 
SO as to represent patterns on carpet is usually 
much deprecated by those who love the nature in 
gardening. Certainly the introduction of carpet 
bedding was a misfortune in this respect, that in 
many cases it destroyed the taste for individual 
plants, and many gardens, which, before the in- 
troduction of carpet bedding, had a great variety 
of various flowers blooming the whole season 
through, were left with nothing but a few strips of 
floral carpeting. It is well, therefore, that the style 
has been in a measure shorn of its popularity in 
private gardens and grounds, for looking the whole 
season, from spring to fall, at the same piece of 
carpet, must certainly become monotonous in time. 
Old fashioned flowers are again assuming their 
place in private gardens; but, as before noted, there 
are certain conditions which favor the application 
of this style, — and this is particularly true of parks 
and public grounds. To persons who visit these oc- 
casionally, the first impression of a first-class piece 
of carpet gardening is certainly very pleasing. In 
nearly all our large cities which have great public 
parks, carpet bedding is among the pleasantest of 
popular attractions. — Meehans' Monthly for Feb. 
