PARK AND CEMETERY 
71 
should administer ; but no court would sanction a dis- 
regard by such an administrator of the wishes of a 
widow, or even of the next of kin, as to the place and 
manner of burial. 
How far the decedent’s own wishes, or even his 
specific directions, are to prevail, must be regarded 
as unsettled. In Williams vs. Williams, Kay, J., held 
that the right of custody being incident to the duty of 
burial, which is in the executors, a man in England 
“cannot by will dispose of his dead body.” The 
case grew out of the disinterment and cremation of 
the body by a stranger to the family, under written 
directions by the deceased ; and the decision was un- 
consciously influenced by the English conservatism in 
regard to burial, and the attendant reluctance to counte- 
nance in any way the innovation of burning. The 
clear trend of the American decisions is to the contrary. 
And, whether the decedent’s directions are regarded as 
paramount or not, it is agreed in all the cases that 
they are entitled to respectful consideration whenever 
the question comes into court. 
A reinterment, involving a removal to another lo- 
cality, stands upon a somewhat different footing, and 
has been the cause of most of the litigation on the 
subject. The duties of the executor or administrator 
terminate with the first interment, and on the question 
of removal he is not a party in interest. The contro- 
versy, if there be one, must be between next of kin. 
The presumption is against a change. 
The result of a full examination of the subject is that 
there is no universal rule applicable alike to all cases, 
but each must be considered in equity on its own mer- 
its, having due regard to the interests of the public, 
the wishes of the decedent, and the rights and feel- 
ings of those entitled to be heard by reason of rela- 
tionship or association. Subject to this general result, 
it may be laid down, first, that the paramount right is 
in the surviving husband or widow, and, if the parties 
were living in the normal relations of marriage, it will 
require a very strong case to justify a court in inter- 
fering with the wish of the survivor ; second, if there is 
no surviving husband or wife, the right is in the next 
of kin in the order of their relation to the decedent, 
as children of proper age, parents, brothers and sisters, 
or more distant kin, modified, it may be, by circum- 
stances of special intimacy or association with the de- 
cedent ; third, how far the desires of the decedent 
should prevail against those of a surviving husband 
or wife is an open question, but as against remoter 
connections, such wishes, especially if strongly and 
recently expressed, should usually prevail ; fourth, 
with regard to a reinterment in a different place, the 
same rules should apply, but with a presumption 
against removal growing stronger with the remoteness 
of connection with the decedent, and reserving always 
the right of the court to require reasonable cause to 
be shown for it. 
A STRANGE MONUMENT OF NATURE, 
The Sheepeater’s Monument, illustrated here, stands 
in the mountains of Idaho ten miles down Monumental 
Creek from the town of Roosevelt, in Thunder Moun- 
tain, and is described as follows by Charles F. Holder 
in The Scientific American, from which our illustration 
is obtained. It was discovered a number of years ago 
by some herders and prospectors, and was reported as 
a gigantic monolith, made by prehistoric man ; and its 
A NATURAL MONOLITH IN IDAHO. 
appearance would justify the assumption. Yet the col- 
umn is the work of wind and weather. The monument 
is over seventy feet in height, of commanding propor- 
tions, and can be seen’ against the sky for a long dis- 
tance. It is nearly eighteen feet in diameter at the 
base, and rises in almost perfect proportions, being near 
the summit ten feet in diameter, sixty feet from the 
ground. The crowning- feature of this stupendous col- 
umn is what appears to be a cube of solid rock poised 
artistically upon one of its points — a position which 
