18 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
Later information concerning the bequest of the late 
Mrs. Nancy C. Blake for the purpose of erecting the Blake 
Memorial Chapel, in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, 
Mass., gives the amount as $40,000 instead of $20,000, as pre- 
viously recorded. 
* s;? * 
East New York, L. I., has been troubled with graveyard 
ghouls for some months past, and quite recently two young 
men were caught selling wreaths which had been taken from 
graves, to some local florist. This is a new development in 
graveyard robbery. 
* * * 
The Washington, D. C., House District Committee has 
favorably reported the Senate bill permitting the burial of 
the dead in the lands of the Episcopal Cathedral. The bill 
further provides that not more than four such burials shall 
be allowed in any one calendar year. 
* * * 
Among the statistics presented at the annual meeting 
of Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., were the follow- 
ing; Number of interments, 159; 37 lots and 4 single graves 
were endowed; total trust fund, $95,622.60. During the year 
23.500 plants and shrubs were planted out. 
* ♦ ★ 
The Daughters of the American Revolution of Easthamp- 
ton. Mass., are moving to appropriately mark the site of the 
first cemetery in that town. There are a number of other 
historic spots in this locality which are receiving attention 
with a view to designating them in a permanent manner. 
* * * 
The desire to improve the cemetery or to acquire land 
for the purpose of creating a desirable one is an idea that is 
making progress. The people of Jewell, Minn., are working 
to secure funds to improve an available piece of property 
they have secured for cemetery purposes. A committee has 
the work in charge, and are vigorously pushing the project. 
♦ ♦ * 
At the annual report of River Bend Cemetery, Westerly, 
R. I., the treasurer’s report showed a balance January i, 
1900, of $12,315.73 and receipts for the past year, $5,870.55, 
making a total of $18,186.28. The disbursements for care of 
cemetery were $2,824.63. Balance Jan. 8, 1901, was $12,861.65. 
There are 389 lots under annual care and 178 under perpetual 
care. 
* * ♦ 
The bill has been favorably reported providing for the 
transfer by the government to the city of Quincy, 111 ., the 
lot in Woodland cemetery, which has been used hitherto 
by the United States as a burial place for the soldier dead. 
It is no longer used for the burial of soldiers, and that the 
bodies therein interred have been all removed from it. The 
bill had no opposition. 
* * * 
A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature to 
dissolve and disorganize cemetery corporations in or adja- 
cent to cities of over 45,000 inhabitants. The provisions of 
the bill are that when alt the lots in a cemetery have been 
sold the control of the cemetery shall pass to the city for 
care and maintenance, and an assessment upon the lot own- 
ers for such purposes is authorized. 
* * ♦ 
The annual meeting of Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, 
Conn., showed the association still largely in debt, but with 
interest warmly alive to relieve the situation. Among the 
statistics were: Number of interments for year, 438; total 
number recorded to date, 16,770; lots sold for year 49, single 
graves 59 - Perpetual care fund, $5)417-48. The amount de- 
posited to credit of chapel fund is $8,525.04. The indebted- 
ness in outstanding bonds is $12,500. 
* * ♦ 
A bill has been introduced into the New York legisla- 
ture which provides that cemetery corporations shall not take 
by deed any lands in Kings, Queens, Rockland, Westches- 
ter, Erie and Rensselaer counties for cemetery purposes, un- 
less the consent of the board of supervisors thereof be first 
obtained, which board may grant such consent upon such 
conditions, regulations and restrictions as, in its judgment, 
the public health or the public good may require. 
* * * 
Somerton Hills Cemetery, near Philadelphia, had to suf- 
fer an investigation last month on alleged illegal intep 
ments of bodies brought from Philadelphia. The particular 
specification of complaint was the burial of a number of in- 
fant corpses in one grave. The assistant medical inspector 
of the Bureau of Health of Philadelphia accompanied by some 
Somerton residents visited the cemetery, and appear to have 
verified the reports upon which the visit of inspection was 
made. The inspector will make his report. 
« * * 
The month of March in the northern latitudes is a nerv- 
ous time for the cemetery superintendent. Should the winter 
huger too long in the lap of spring, he is constantly appre- 
hensive of the time for spring work being too seriously cur- 
tailed; should the weather prove unusually favorable he is 
anxious yet fearful of possible disastrous freezes later on 
when nature has been tempted to unfold a little earlier, and 
all his care and attention be ruthlessly nullified. He is philo- 
sophical, however, as a rule, and being closely in touch 
with nature he is usually consoled by her ample generosity 
sooner or later. 
* * * 
The members of the Franklin Township Committee, New- 
ark, N. J., were severely criticized at a public meeting held 
in that city a short time since for granting a permit for 
the location of a cemetery in the northwestern part of the 
township. An emphatic protest was made by the citizens, who 
were also represented at the meeting by counsel, against 
the establishing of the burial ground. Citizens had secured 
an order of the court to examine the minutes of the meet- 
ing of the committee at which the permit was granted, and 
appearances indicate that a strong contest will be made to 
compel the committee to rescind its action. The indignation 
of the citizens created considerable acrimony in the proceed- 
ings. 
* * * 
A decision was recently rendered by the Clayton Circuit 
Court, St. Louis, Mo., in an injunction suit of the German 
Evangelical Congregation against Joseph Hoefiner, which 
involved the supremacy of the director of a cemetery over 
a lotholder thereof, which injunction was denied by Judge 
John W. McElhinney, and decision given for lotholder. In 
the second point in the suit the judge decided that a silence 
of 45 years does not validate an invalid title. The cemetery 
sought to restrain one Hoeffner from decorating graves in 
the cemetery even though employed to do so by lotholders, 
in accordance with a rule of the cemetery which forbade the 
use of outside gardeners in the grounds without a \yritten 
permit from the board. The judge maintained that the ceme- 
tery rule. was an unreasonable Interference with the ownership 
rights of lotowners. 
