120 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
CONVENTION OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERI^ 
CAN CEMETERY SUPERINTENDENTS, 
The fifteenth annual convention of the Association 
of American Cemetery Superintendents will be held 
at Pittsburg, Pa., September 17, 18, 19. The head- 
quarters of the association will be at the Hotel Schen- 
ley, rates $2 a day, European plan. The date of the 
convention is one week later than at first intended, 
and announced on the printed programs, owing to the 
difficulty of getting hotel accommodations on the first 
dates selected. The rest of the program, however, will 
be carried out as printed, and will consist of interest- 
ing papers and addresses, visits to cemeteries, enter- 
tainments, etc. 
The program is as follows : 
TUESDAY, SEPT. 17th, 9:30 A. M. 
Session Opened with Prayer. 
Welcome City Recorder 
President’s Address. 
Report of Secretary and Treasurer. I 
.\ppointment of Committees. 
Question Box— Discussion of Questions. 
Afternoon 2 P. M. — Visit Phipps’ Conservatory, Carnegie 
Library, and Museum, in carriages. 
Evening 7:30 P. M. — Address Chancellor Holland 
1st Paper. — Why Should We Encourage the Membership 
of this Association? M. Jensen 
2d Paper. — Why I Joined the Association C. W. Modie 
3d Paper. — The Influence of Modern Well-Kept Ceme- 
teries in the Community Jno. E. Miller 
Question Box — Discussion. 
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. i8th, 9:30 A. M. 
Roll Call. 
4th Paper. — New Cemeteries and Their Management 
Bellett Lawson, Jr. 
Sth Paper. — Progression N. C. Wilder 
6th Paper. — Burial Parks Bellett Lawson, Sr. 
Question Box — Discussion. 
Afternoon 2 P. M. — Carriage ride to Calvary and Home- 
wood Cemeteries. 
Evening. — Nomination of Officers. 
Paper with Stereopticon Views — “Before and After, or 
the Evolution of the Graveyard” Sid. J. Hare 
p By Mr. Falconer, Supt. of Schenley Park 
— Resume of the Information Collected from 
Cemeteries by Means of Special Blanks. .Frank Enrich 
THURSDAY, SEPT. 19th, 9 :30 A. M. 
Report of Committees. Appointment of Committee — select- 
ing next place of meeting. Election of Officers. 
Afternoon. — Visit Highland Park and Allegheny Cemetery 
in carriages. 
Evening. — Banquet tendered by tbe local Cemetery Associa- 
tions. 
An invitation is extended to all cemetery corpora- 
tions to send representatives to the convention. In- 
formation relative to the cost of membership in the 
association may be had by addressing Mr. H. Wilson 
Ross, secretary, Newton Center, Mass. 
PROHIBITING BURIALS WITHIN CITY LIMITS. 
The supreme court of Oregon says, in the case of Wy- 
gant against McLaughlin, 64 Pacific Reporter 867, that a 
cemetery is not a nuisance, except conditions be present 
which corrupt or foul the atmosphere by unwholesome or 
noxious stenches, or impregnate the water of wells or springs 
in the vicinity by percolation through the soil, thereby endan- 
.gering the public health. Hence, the authorities agree that a 
cemetery is not nor can it be regarded a nuisance per se, or of 
itself. And whether the act of depositing a dead body in its 
place of sepulture is the commission of a nuisance, the court 
says, depends entirely upon its proximity to the habitations 
of the living and the manner in which it is accomplished. 
Furthermore, holding that a city which is given power by its 
charter to declare what shall constitute a nuisance is not 
thereby authorized to declare that to be a nuisance which 
is neither such of itself nor under the common law, nor 
made so by statutory enactment, the court thinks it follows 
that the city council of the city is not authorized to declare 
generally that to deposit a dead body in any portion of an 
inhibited district shall constitute a nuisance, when it is con- 
ceded, as it was in this case, that such an interment may 
be made in the usual way in some sections thereof, without 
giving offense to the senses of any human inhabitant, or en- 
dangering in the least measure the health of the community. 
If, however, the legislature had granted special and express 
power to exclude burials from within the city limits, the adop- 
tion of such an ordinance as the one here in question, which 
declared the burial of the dead within the city limits, out- 
side of certain excepted districts, to be a nuisance, and pro- 
vided for the punishment of persons doing the acts thereby 
declared to be offenses against the city, the court holds 
would be a legitimate exercise of the power conferred, and 
no one could question its validity. But when the nature of 
the power delegated enjoins upon the city the duty of adopt- 
ing such measures only as are reasonable, as under the cir- 
cumstances first mentioned, that becomes the measure and 
limit of the power, and any act in excess thereof is without 
legal efficacy, and an ordinance being unreasonable there- 
under as applied to certain sparsely inhabited portions of the 
city wherein burials are prohibited, and general in its terri- 
torial scope and operation, it is invalid as to the whole, and 
must fall in its entirety. Again, the court says that, under 
the general police power incident to all municipal corporation, 
and under special charter power “to provide for the health, 
cleanliness, ornament, peace, and good order of the city,” the 
power thus conferred is no doubt ample to authorize the city 
to adopt reasonable measures prescribing rules and regula- 
tions, as it respects the place and manner of burials within 
the city limits ; but the city cannot arbitrarily prohibit them, 
unless such prohibition be a reasonable exercise of the power. 
TOMB" BROADLY DEFINED. 
As a legal echo of the sinking of the French steamer 
La Bourgogne on July 4, 1898, the supreme court of Lou- 
isiana holds, in the matter of the successions of Pauline 
Langles and Angele Langles, who perished in that disaster, 
that a provision in a will that the executor should expend 
a certain amount for a tomb for the testatrix does not lapse 
because the body of the deceased cannot be recovered and 
deposited in it. The word “tomb,” it declares, 29 Southern 
Reporter, 739, has a sufficiently broad significance to be held 
to be a monument in memory of the dead; and as such it 
should be erected. Here, for example, it considers was a 
proper occasion to give the word its broadest meaning. 
