42 
PARK AND CEMETERY, 
The many forms of indestructible labels are either 
too difficult to prepare, or if made by others, they are 
too expensive. Cast iron ones have been used in many 
public and private gardens, but they are bad in many 
ways — they are dear, they get in the way of the mower 
and the scythe, or are hidden by grass, they corrode in 
time and even become targets for stone throwing boys. 
I have known them to be changed and thrown around 
over a wide area by the mischievous urchins! For- 
tunately the collection in which this happened had a 
gardener in charge who had a wide experience, and who 
in addition to the iron tallies, had a systematic system 
of zinc labels, which were tacked to trees, wound 
around small shrubs, or stuck in the ground for herbs- 
For durability, cheapness and usefulness, it is doubt- 
ful if the zinc label can be improved upon. Its genera* 
Is Miii 
f S pcrc/tnfs 
' 
utility is all that can be desired, for thin sheet zinc can 
be had of most hardware men, plumbers and metal 
worker.-;, and cut in any shape — the simpler the better. 
For general purposes strips may be cut in the manner 
above of any size, thus making two labels, which 
may either be stuck in the ground, have their thin ends 
lapped around a stem or branch, or the strips may be 
used uncut, and when written upon, rivetted to a foot 
of telegraph wire and form a cheap T shaped label. 
Tliere are different ways of marking these. Prob- 
ably the best for ])ublic parks, where conspicuousness 
is required is first to paint the zinc black, and thenhave 
a painter letter them in white. Various indelible pen- 
cils and inks are also used for writing on zinc, one of 
the simplest of which is made by dissolving a few 
grains of cobalt chloride (salts) in water. This can be 
written with a clean pen, and probably has some mag- 
netic action on the zinc which leaves an indelible im- 
pression. Care should be taken to avoid blotting by 
simply laying the written labe's up to dry. 
Such writing will be legible after several years use 
in the ground, but whatever label is used nothing 
should prevent the necessary amiiial overhauling. 
lames Mac Pherson. 
NOTES, CHIEFLY HISTORICAL, ON LONDON BURIAL 
PLACES, L 
If there are any persons who fail to appreciate 
the ideas that have been developed in America of 
late years in regard to the disposal of the dead, 
and the proper care of th-eir last resting places, 
they would do well to bestow some attention upon 
the burial places of the City of London. The 
present writer's researches have resulted in the col- 
lection of a large volume of notes from which a 
careful selection has been made for these papers of 
such as cannot fail to be of interest. And some of 
them will doubtless prove suggestive, not so much 
of what to do as of what not to do, but more par- 
ticularly as to how to deal with the evil of over- 
crowded burial places in over-crowded cities. 
* * * 
Not unlikely the whole of London is a burial 
place, and the foot passenger scarcely takes a step 
without treading upon the dust of former genera- 
tions. And this may be taken in a more literal 
sense than the common expression that the whole 
earth is one vast graveyard. When one considers — 
in connection with the immense populations that 
have lived and died upon the site of the great 
metropolis of the Anglo-Saxon world during the 
eighteen centuries of its history — the one hundred 
and thirteen graveyards, of whose existence at one 
time there are authentic records, but which have 
now wholly disappeared, besides those which now 
remain, wholly or in part (by actual count three 
hundred and sixty-four) one realizes that there 
must be an enormous amount of human dust in the 
soil of London city. 
# # 
The historical notes collected upon the subject 
go back to the earliest times. The Tumulus, Par- 
liament Hill Fields, is pronounced by competent 
scientific authority, to be an ancient British burial 
place of the early bronze period. There are 
tumuli also in Greenwich Park and remains of 
Roman burial places have been discovered and in- 
vestigated in various parts of the city. The in- 
formation is fuller regarding the graveyards of 
priories and convents of a later period and of the 
middle ages, when churchyards were used for 
miracle plays, “moralities” or mysteries; and 
curious documents like the following are to be 
found in the archives of the ecclesiastical estab- 
lishments: “Receyved of Hugh Grymes, for lycens 
geven to certen players to play their enterludes in 
the churchyards from the feast of Plaster, An. 
D’ni. 1560, untyll the feaste of Seynt Mychaell 
Tharchangell next comynge, every holydaye, to 
the use of the parysshe, the some of 27 s. and 8 d.” 
Saint Paul’s Churchyard was at that time not only 
a religious center, (for “Paul's Cross” was there, 
an out-door pulpit from which sermons of more 
than ordinary importance were preached, j but a 
worldly center as well, and was the advertised 
scene of the drawing of a Lottery in 1569. It 
was a fashionable promenade as late as the be^in- 
^ fe 
ning of the eighteenth century. 
* * 
Probabl)- the most interesting phases of these 
historical notes are those relating to the changes 
which have taken place in these burial places, a'l 
tending in the direction of the giving way of these 
abodes of the dead at the demands of the living. 
