Editorial JWote and Comment. 
< -Advertising in the New York Sabi# ay. 
The Municipal Art Society of New York City has 
presented a strong memorial to the Rapid Transit 
Commission of that city on the question of defacing 
the walls and stations of the great underground thor- 
oughfare with promiscuous advertising. Under the 
contract of construction the work has been carried out 
on attractive lines, and the idea of detracting from 
becoming appearances is repugnant to an enlightened 
public. The law establishing the commission and its 
duties authorizes it to provide the “most efficient sys- 
tem of rapid transit in view of the public needs and 
requirements,” and the memorial holds “that private 
advertising is not a public need or requirement, or 
necessary to the efficiency of the railway or to public 
convenience or safety.” And this view will be main- 
tained by the great majority of intelligent citizens. 
* * 
The Use of Highways. 
While we are haggling over injunctions to prevent 
the “red-devil” and other motors from extinguishing 
us when using our highways, and the lawyers are fur- 
ther confusing the question of public rights for what 
there is in it, the Englishmen have formed a High- 
ways Protection League, details of which are given 
in the Surveyor and Municipal and County Engineer. 
In main the league proposes to protect the highways 
for the use of the general public, to afford informa- 
tion on public rights, investigate injuries to persons or 
property, to assist in obtaining redress and to take 
steps for the enforcement of existing law and amend- 
ment of law if advisable. The above journal says the 
league is the inevitable consequence of well-bred Hooli- 
ganism on public thoroughfares. It further says : 
“The possession or control, permanent or temporary, 
of a motor car appears to justify in some minds the 
perpetration of excesses which have little to differen- 
tiate them from wilful outrage.” What is the Ameri- 
can public going to do to protect itself against the well 
developed epidemic of motor-car Hooliganism ram- 
pant on this side of the Atlantic? 
* * * 
The Chicago Park System. 
The outcome of the recent election in Chicago, car- 
rying as it did practically all the reforms under dis- 
cussion, will have an important bearing upon Chicago’s 
park system. The new charter, now being formulated 
to present to the legislature, provides a method of gov- 
ernment for the parks, and it is to be hoped that the 
change will forever remove the disgraceful conditions 
that have existed in at least one of the park boards. 
It goes without saying that the cause has been politi- 
cal influence. If one should desire to study park de- 
velopment under varying influences there is still no 
better place than Chicago. The South Parks have been 
managed for many years comparatively free from po- 
litical interference, and under the direction of compe- 
tent men, and are worthy of the great city. The 
North Side park, Lincoln park, until three years ago 
the prey of ward politics, and at that time rapidly de- 
generating into a public disgrace, by an upheaval was 
divorced from politics, and is at present very rapidly 
gaining in appearance and prominence although under 
unsatisfactory financial conditions. But of the West 
Side parks, still under the ban, the less said the better. 
But for the grip the political machine had upon it, 
it could not have held together a day as a public in- 
stitution. The lessons of Chicago in park manage- 
ment should be studied by every community, great or 
small, in order to guard against the evils which lax 
public morality has unwittingly endorsed. 
* * * 
The Lake View , Cleveland, 0., Cemetery Employees. 
A decided departure in the management of cemetery 
employees has been developed in Lake View Cemetery, 
Cleveland, O., under the direction of Mr. Frederick 
Green, Secretary and Treasurer. The management of 
the employees is hardly the correct way to state the 
case, for as a matter of fact the employees manage 
themselves, and in a most efficient and practical man- 
ner. The idea of the entire plan does away with offi- 
cials and subordinates, the keynote being more like in- 
dividual proprietorship, and the work of caring for 
the cemetery is the controlling factor. Some three 
years ago the system was inaugurated, and it is a pro- 
gressive plan, every year appearing to improve it and 
suggest higher ideals. Every class of employee in 
this large cemetery is inter-related though all work 
separately and yet together for the general welfare 
of both the property and themselves. A book of rules 
was adopted by them, which as the book says, “do not 
aim to oppress any man, on the contrary, their object 
is to help each man be his own boss.” The plan de- 
mands a more elaborate explanation in the early future. 
* * * 
A Warning that 'hill 'Bear Repetition. 
The advent of cold weather prompts the warning, 
frequently given, concerning the old custom of uncov- 
ering the head during services in the cemetery at the 
grave. It is not a question of respect for the departed, 
for surely on such occasions it is the spirit that speak- 
eth, but one of the welfare of the living which demands 
the exercise of common sense. Respect for the dead 
cannot, under any interpretation, be construed to im- 
ply that risks of sickness should be invited to demon- 
strate that sentiment, and medical authorities have so 
set the stamp of severe disapproval on the custom, that 
should the funeral director at the grave fail to request 
that hats be not removed, it is plainly the dutv of the 
cemetery superintendent to do so. 
