Editorial JSfote and Comment. 
The 'Public School Grounds . 
The question of keeping public school grounds open 
beyond the regular school hours came up at a recent 
meeting of the Board of Education, Chicago, and it 
was resolved, after further meetings and discussion, 
to test the popularity of the scheme by maintaining 
open grounds between the hours of 8 a. m. and 5 p. m. 
This should be of great benefit to both the pupils of 
the school and the neighborhood. By improving the 
school grounds to form attractive playgrounds, the 
park system of a city is thereby increased and in a way 
that brings the benefits of the park to the neighbor- 
hood educational center. And it can be made an ex- 
cellent addition to the school curriculum. The advan- 
tages of school grounds, properly improved, and ar- 
ranged to meet the needs of the young student both 
for mind and body, are only beginning to be appreci- 
ated, and the extension of the idea promises to make 
school days a delight and pleasure, with the consequent 
cultural improvement of the surrounding community. 
^ 
The Improvement of Rural Cemeteries. 
A great deal of thought has been given of late years 
to the subject of the improvement of our rural ceme- 
teries and country burial grounds. Their general con- 
dition has often been commented upon in these col- 
umns, and the difficulty of securing and maintaining 
special and constant care has been frequently discussed. 
At the recent Chicago convention of the Association of 
American Cemetery Superintendents, Mr. Bellett Law- 
son, Jr., suggested the employment of a competent man 
who should be entrusted with the care of a number of 
adjacent burial grounds, while the manual labor neces- 
sary on each should be done by a local sexton or 
foreman. This is a new idea and well worthy of trial. 
But! and this word is the proverbial wet blanket, how 
shall we proceed to arouse the apathy of the average 
village citizen or country resident, who seems perfectly 
satisfied with present conditions. If the national asso- 
ciation could or would influence its members to start 
a practical crusade of education, by, for instance, free 
practical talks in neglected localities, a start might be 
made to interest the lotowners in the smaller commu- 
nities, and missionaries inspired thereby to carry on the 
good work thus rightly begun. 
^ ^ ^ 
Judgment for Tree Destruction. 
A Springfield, Mass., jury has recently awarded a 
property owner $234 for the loss of a shade tree, cut 
down by an electric railroad company’s employes. This 
correlates the old-time principle of property rights 
with the shade tree question, and establishes the fact 
that no electric company has the right to destroy or 
injure trees belonging to property owners on its route 
without paying for them. Whether it is necessary to 
sacrifice trees in the extension of electric power or 
not, they must be paid for, and had private owners not 
been too much overawed by corporation excesses, 
but had kept alive to their rights, these corporations 
would have been far more careful in their methods, 
and would have respected private ownership in trees 
as zealously as in other classes of property. But it is 
not only the electric companies that need to be educated 
in the rights of tree owners. A legal light presiding 
over a New Jersey justice court, a short time ago, gave 
judgment against a telephone company in the sum of 
fifteen dollars, in a suit to recover for the destruction 
of two bearing apple trees and a fine cherry tree. The 
legal rights of the owner were unquestioned, but we 
know the majority of our readers will seriously ques- 
tion the right of such a justice to render judgment 
on a subject in which he is clearly deficient of common 
knowledge. It is a poor kind of apple tree that will 
not pay heavy dividends on a $50 valuation ; we have 
known examples where for several years running such 
a valuation has yielded from 12 to 25 per cent, but of 
course it is intended that such trees shall be properly 
cared for. In some of the fruit growing states stand- 
ards of value have been established to facilitate the set-' 
tlement of controversies where property rights have 
been trespassed upon, and since the tree question has 
become an important one the suggestion seems proper 
for the state legislatures to act upon. 
^ ^ 
The 'Billboard Campaign. 
Just at the present time perhaps the greatest activity 
in this war for better conditions prevails at Spring- 
field, Mass. It may be remembered that the last legis- 
lature of the state enacted a law, giving park author- 
ities powers to enact rules for the purpose of control- 
ling the billboard nuisance in the vicinity of the public 
parks. The park authorities proceeded under its rules 
to prosecute a bill posting concern for an infraction, in 
that a large whiskey sign was displayed within the pro- 
hibited district, but the court ruled against them on the 
score of the rules in question being unreasonable. The 
park officials immediately secured expert assistance to 
make the rules reasonable, and further effort is being 
made to enforce them. In the meantime the bill post- 
ing concern has outraged common decency by adding 
to the original offense on the same board, and it is to 
be hoped that the judge who ruled against the park 
idea in favor of the whiskey sign may be able to rise 
to the occasion and suppress the ostentatious and ill- 
timed impertinence of the advertising company. One 
would think it impossible to defend so flagrant an abuse 
of commercial privilege, yet some of our most conser- 
vative newspapers can find extenuating reasons for it. 
With the vast field of other advertising possibilities, 
however, the billboard as a lucrative business will soon 
be a scheme of the past. 
