PARK AND CEMETERY. 
318 
Legal. 
GROUNDS FOR APPOINTMENT OF RECEIVER. 
A petition was filled, in the case of the Hous- 
ton Cemetery Co. v. Drew, alleging facts to show, 
and charging, that the cemetery company and its of- 
ficers had failed to maintain the cemetery in a pro- 
per state of preservation and adaptation for the uses 
and purposes to which it was dedicated; that they 
had, without authority, increased the stock of the 
company, by issuing watered stock; that they had 
executed a deed of trust, violation of law, upon a 
part of the grounds of the cemetery; that they had 
wrongfully missapplied a trust fund provided by 
the charter and by-laws, for improving and keep- 
ing the cemetery, by loaning it to the company, 
and .executing the above-mentioned trust deed; that 
they unlawfully imposed a tax upon the transfer of 
burial lots by the lot owners, and had closed, al- 
tered, and changed the drives, roads, and other 
open places in the cemetery. The Court of Civil 
Appeals of Texas holds that this would authorize 
the appointment of a receiver, without it being 
made to appear conclusively that the plaintiff was 
entitled to recover. It says the cemetery com- 
pany, whether as a kind of public corporation, or 
one strictly private owed duties to its lot owners 
and shareholders, which it might be compelled by 
the courts to perform. The fact that the father 
and other relatives of the judge were buried in the 
cemetery, he not being a lot owner, did not dis- 
qualify him from hearing the petition on the 
ground of interest in the suit. And the allegations 
of the petition above recited were sufficient to ex- 
cuse complaining shareholder from seeking redress 
through the corporation. There can scarcely be 
any doubt, says the court that a lot owner in a 
cemetery corporation has such an interest therein 
that he may be protected in a proceeding ot this 
kind. He is not the owner of an easement or mere 
right to use, and his right to have the drives, 
walks and approaches kept in repair does not de- 
pend upon the law of easements, as it is technically 
called. 
HOARD OF HEALTH TO SAY ABOUT CEMETERIES. 
A law was passed in New Jersey, which was 
approved March 5, 1896, that provides that no new 
cemetery shall hereafter be established, nor shall 
any cemetery now existing be enlarged or any 
lands not used for cemetery purposes be used for 
such purposes in the cities of the first class in that 
state, without the consent of the common council 
and board of health of such city, to be expressed 
by resolution and the approval thereof by the ma- 
yor of such city. 
PoiTTlc.S IN Public Parks. — During the last 
ten years, there has been marked attention to pro- 
viding public parks or small open squares for the 
people in the greater majority of the larger cities of 
the Union; but much complaint is made that poli 
tics dominate to such an extent that very little real 
good is obtained from the tax-payers’ money. It 
is frequently spent extravagantly, while the amount 
of pleasure derived from the expenditure is propor- 
tionately small. The writer of this paragraph 
has had some fourteen years experience as a legisla- 
tor in one of the largest cities of the Union, and 
his experiences are, — for all the objections the 
American people generally have to Boards and 
Commissions— that their parks and pleasure 
grounds are more likely to be well managed under 
Boards and Commissions, than under the direct su- 
pervision of City Councils themselves. Politics 
will enter into Boards and Commissions just as 
much as they will into the management directly by 
the city; but the continual changes which follow 
this latter direct management are far more disas- 
trous than even the influence of politics, in affairs 
of this kind. To have a good successful park or 
garden, there must be a regular plan to be carried 
out; but with incessant, and almost yearly, changes 
in management, what is done one year is upset the 
next; and there is far more waste through this, by 
the personal influence referred to, than in general 
politics. There is, however, always this in con- 
nection with parks and open spaces, that although 
they cannot be managed in the best possible inter- 
est of public wants, the open spaces in themselves 
are of value. It has fallen to the good pleasure of 
the writer to add nearly looo acres in numerous 
small parks for the city in which he resides; but 
although sometimes grieved that they are not, and 
probably will never, be managed as they might be 
for the best interest of the community, they will 
afford recreation to thousands. They are not what 
they might be, still they are of great value as they 
are. — Meehans' Monthly for Angiist. 
Near Ardenlee in Scotland, there is an attractive 
and effective advertisement, made of flower-beds. 
The beds are each a gigantic letter, forty feet in 
length, the whole forming the words ^'Glasgow 
Nezvs." The total length of the line is 123 feet, 
and the area covered by the letters, 14,845 feet. 
It is laid out on the side of a hill, and, being of 
bright-colored flowers, can be read for a distance 
of four and a half miles. 
The oldest tree in England is the yew tree at 
Braburn in Kent, which is said to be 3,000 years 
old, while at Fortignal, Perthshire, is one nearly as 
obi. At Ankerwyke House, near Staines, is a yew 
tree which was famous at the date of the signing of 
the Magna Charta 
