PARK AND CEMETERY. 
281 
ested parties concerning the concrete mau- 
soleum on the J. S. McCarthy lot, to either 
repair or tear down the structure, which 
is falling to pieces. Nothing has been done 
bv the relatives, so the executive commit- 
LIMITING COST 
In the settlement of a deceased person's 
estate, how much money may be spent for 
a monument? 
This interesting and practical question is 
suggested by a case pending in Minnesota 
wherein heirs of a decedent sought to 
break a will which called for erection of 
a monument over her grave at a cost of 
$17,000, an amount which will consume the 
greater part of the estate. The heirs, ap- 
parently believing that they could spend 
part of the $17,000 to a better advantage 
to themselves than putting it in a shaft 
dedicated to the memory of deceased, con- 
tested the will as providing an unreason- 
able amount for a monument, but both the 
probate judge and the district court upheld 
the right of decedent to spend her own 
money as she saw fit, it being inferentiallv 
found that she was of sound mind when 
she made her will. 
Common sense suggests these two gen- 
eral rules of law, and the court decisions 
seem to support them : 
1. A person of sound mind may dispose 
of his own money as he sees fit. There- 
fore, if he chooses to put every cent of his 
net assets into a monument, after providing 
for the payment of the debt he leaves, he 
has a right to do so. It is not to be 
doubted, however, lhat a provision in a will 
for a monument might be so unnatural or 
fanatical as to be some evidence of the 
testator’s mental unsoundness. 
2. When a will is silent as to how much 
shall be spent for a monument, or when 
there is no will or no provision at all con- 
cerning a tombstone, the estate will not be 
held liable for more than a reasonable 
amount, considering decedent’s station in 
life and the amount of his estate. As 
stated at page 439, volume 18. Cyc. : 
“The expense of erecting a monument at 
the grave of the decedent is usually al- 
lowed against the estate, especially where 
the estate is ample, such expenditure being 
considered in some jurisdictions a part of 
the ‘funeral expenses.’ But the expendi- 
ture in this connection which will be al- 
lowed against the estate must be reason- 
able, taking into consideration the amount 
of the estate and also its condition as to 
solvency or insolvency, and as the erection 
of a monument is not a matter of such 
urgent and immediate necessity as the fu- 
neral and interment af the decedent, this 
expense should be incurred only by or at 
least with the consent of the personal rep- 
resentative. and where a person having no 
authority in the premises from the repre- 
tee was directed to tear it down and bury 
the bodies in the lot.” 
J. Gordon Smith is secretary of the 
Rome Cemetery Association and Frank H. 
Smith, superintendent. 
OF MONUMENTS. 
sentative has ordered and procured the 
erection of a tombstone or monument, the 
courts have refused to hold the estate liable 
either to the person who actually furnished 
the tombstone or monument or to the per- 
son who ordered and procured the same 
in case he has paid therefor.” 
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has 
said : 
“In any event, the act of burial includes 
all the usual incidents of decent burial, of 
which one, at least, is the erection of a 
suitable tombstone." 
And the Indiana Supreme Court de- 
clares : 
“It certainly cannot be asserted that the 
mere fact that a tombstone or monument 
to mark the last resting place of the de- 
ceased was erected at the grave after the 
burial will result in making it any less an 
item incident to such burial. Of course, 
where the estate of the deceased is insol- 
vent, a stricter rule prevails in the allow- 
ance of funeral expenses than is enforced 
where the estate is solvent. The rights of 
creditors of insolvent estates are of more 
regard than those of the next of kin of the 
deceased, and the rule in such cases is to 
allow no more to defray funeral expenses 
than is necessary and reasonable under all 
of the circumstances. In the determina- 
tion of that question, however, the rank or 
condition in life of the deceased is a fac- 
tor to be taken into consideration by the 
court. ’ The rule that, in the eye of the 
law, one must be just before he is generous 
applies with equal force to his estate after 
his demise, or, in other words, as asserted 
by some of the authorities, ‘Dead debtors 
must not feast to make their living cred- 
itors fast.’ In the absence of any statutory 
restriction to the contrary, the amount to 
be allowed against the estate of a decedent 
for the cost of a tombstone or monument 
or other funeral expenses is, as a general 
rule, a matter to be left under all the cir- 
cumstances of the particular case, to the 
sound discretion of the probate court, the 
abuse of which discretion will be subject to 
review on appeal to a higher court.” 
Where the will of a decedent, whose en- 
tire .estate amounted to $2,410, authorized 
his executor to purchase and erect in the 
testator's burial plot a monument of New 
England granite of sufficient size to cut 
thereon a dozen names mentioned in tbe 
will, with dates of birth and death, and 
also to erect a suitable fence around the 
plot with granite posts, an expenditure of 
$1,050 by the executor for this purpose 
was held by the Appellate Division of the 
New York Supreme Court to have been ex- 
cessive. 
And a Pennsylvania court has refused to 
sanction an allowance of $400 for a monu- 
ment to the memory of a man who left 
only $1,000 and a widow with ten children. 
PARK NEWS. 
A memorial drinking fountain was erect- 
ed in Forest Park, Springfield, Mass., re- 
cently in honor of Dr. Chester Twitchell 
Stockwell. The fountain was the gift of 
dentists and other friends of Dr. Stockwell 
and was designed by Herbert N. Headle, 
an employee of the Park Department. 
The Parks Department of the city of 
Calgary, Can., has submitted its annual re- 
port for 1914. Ninety-nine thousand four 
hundred and ninety-two dollars was ap- 
propriated for improvements and main- 
tenance and $80,555.75 of this was spent 
during the year : $61,679.24 represents ac- 
tual park and boulevard development and 
maintenance, the remainder covering ex- 
traneous purposes. Under Local Improve- 
ment By-Law 1610, 39,075 feet {7 l A miles) 
of new boulevard have been constructed at 
a cost, including overhead charges, of $17,- 
768.58, or approximately 45 cents per foot 
frontage ($225 per block). There are now 
forty miles of boulevard in the city. \ he 
summary of the planting on all parks and 
boulevards, exclusive of nursery planting, 
is as follows: 6,181 trees, 5,476 herbaceous 
perennials, 5,083 shrubs and 34,834 bulbs. 
The Parks Department also maintains the 
cemetery in this city and much improve- 
ment work was accomplished during the 
year. The grading of roads was continued, 
and where these contained loam, this was 
removed for use on the grave plots and re- 
placed with the surplus soil from the 
graves. The surfacing of roads with cin- 
ders was continued, about 1,000 loads being 
hauled. Two thousand and thirty-seven 
trees were planted and 3,314 flowering 
plants and bulbs used for the embellish- 
ment of the borders. The work of install- 
ing a system of road drainage was started. 
The fifty-fifth annual report of the 
Board of Park Commissioners of Plart- 
ford, Conn., together with the seventh an- 
nual report of the public cemeteries which 
come under its jurisdiction, has been sub- 
mitted. The superintendent’s report to this 
board gives an accurate account of the 
