PARK AND CEMETERY. 
339 
in New York, one in Pennsylvania and 
three in Ontario, Canada. 
The disease could be controlled now by 
the destruction of the diseased white pines 
or the complete destruction of all currant 
and gooseberry bushes in the vicinity of in- 
fected pine trees. Whether or not this 
simple action can be accomplished depends 
upon the legal authority possessed by the 
various state horticultural inspectors con- 
cerned. If the inspector is not armed with 
authority to destroy either currant bushes 
or the diseased white pines without the 
consent of the owner, all efforts at control 
will be unavailing, as a single person by 
permitting diseased pines or currants to re- 
main on his place can nullify the work of 
an entire community. 
EFFECT OF CEMETERY ON ADJOINING PROPERTY. 
“A cemetery may be objectionable or of- 
fensive to the taste of an adjoining owner, 
but it is not a nuisance in itself and its 
use cannot be enjoined merely because it is 
offensive to the esthetic sense of an adjoin- 
ing proprietor. Before it can be abated or 
its use enjoined it must be clearly and sat- 
isfactorily proven to be a nuisance, and this 
cannot be done by evidence tending to 
show that it might become such.” 
So said the Illinois Supreme Court in the 
recent case of Sutton vs. Findlay Cemetery 
Association, 110 Northeastern Reporter, 
315, in which it was decided that, under the 
peculiar facts of that case, a farm owner 
was entitled to enjoin maintenance of such 
underdrainage of a nearby cemetery as to 
pollute a stream used by him, but that, 
otherwise, plaintiff was not entitled to com- 
plain. 
The court holds that expert testimony in 
the case left no doubt that underdrainage 
of defendant’s cemetery would result in 
water and liquid from decaying bodies per- 
colating through the soil into tile, carrying 
poisonous or disease germs, which would 
find their way into the stream used by 
plaintiff. The opinion says : 
‘‘We are of the opinion the evidence in 
this case left it free from substantial doubt 
that the proposed underdrainage of de- 
fendant’s cemetery would contaminate and 
injuriously affect the water on complain- 
ant’s premises for the uses to which it was 
put, and complainant was therefore entitled 
to the writ of injunction restraining the 
underdrainage of the cemetery into the 
branch. The chancellor erred in not so de- 
creeing, but did not err in denying the in- 
junction as prayed, restraining the use of 
the land for burial purposes. 
“The complainant contends that even 
without the underdrainage the burial of 
human bodies in the cemetery will contami- 
nate the air on complainant's land and pol- 
lute the water of the branch. * * * In 
view of the character and lay of this land 
and the nature of the proof proposed to be 
made, we are satisfied it could not, under 
the rules of law above referred to, have 
justified awarding the writ of injunction. 
The great weight of the proof showed that 
the land was not low, swampy land. * * * 
Water on its surface finds its way with 
reasonable speed into the branch, and even 
if complainant’s witnesses had been per- 
mitted to testify that in their opinion the 
use of the land for burial purposes, with- 
out any underdrainage, would injuriously 
affect complainant’s premises and pollute 
the water of the branch, the very nature of 
the case is such it would not have estab- 
lished the fact so clearly and free from 
substantial doubt as to have justified en- 
joining the use of the land as a burial 
ground. It is not enough that it threatened 
to or might become a nuisance, but the 
proof would be required to go to the ex- 
tent of satisfactorily showing that the 
nuisance is inevitable from the proposed 
use of the premises.” 
ASKED AND ANSWERED 
An exchange of experience on practical matters by our readers. You 
are invited to contribute questions and answers to this department 
Receiving Vault Beneath Chapel. 
Editor Asked and Answered : Is there 
any objection to placing a receiving vault 
underneath a cemetery chapel, providing a 
lifting device is installed for elevating the 
bodies into the chapel for services? Can 
instances be given where this has been 
done?— A. P. B., 111. 
Relative to the inquiry of your corre- 
spondent, “Is there any objection to placing 
a receiving vault underneath a cemetery 
chapel, providing a lifting device is in- 
stalled for lifting the bodies into the chapel 
for services? Can instances be given where 
this has been done?” it may be opportune 
to say before dealing directly with the 
question, that in many respects it is ad- 
vantageous to have the receiving vault so 
situated that it may be entered directly 
from the chapel, either on the same level 
or from the basement or lower floor of the 
building. The vault may be constructed 
above ground in connection with the chapel 
as a part of the general structure, or be 
wholly situated in the basement, or it may 
be semi-detached, perhaps concealed, and 
accessible from the interior of the chapel 
and from the outside. 
Your correspondent being apparently par- 
ticularly interested in the basement or un- 
derground vault, I will confine my remarks 
to a consideration of that plan. In my 
opinion, from our experience in Forest 
Home Cemetery and observation in other 
cemeteries where a similar plan has been 
adopted, there are no serious objections, 
but, on the contrary, several advantages in 
having the receiving vault in the basement 
or lower floor of the chapel, providing the 
contour of the grounds surrounding the 
building will permit of entering the chapel 
from the front at one level and the vault 
from the rear at a lower level. The plan, 
besides being convenient, effects economy 
of space and money, utilizes what might 
otherwise be waste room, and results in a 
more compact and perhaps more acceptable 
building than if the vault was wholly 
above ground. It would, however, in my 
opinion, be objectionable to raise the chapel 
floor more than a few steps above the ap- 
proach or have the vault floor much, if 
any, below the level of the roadway at the 
rear of the building, although even that 
has been successfully accomplished by hav- 
ing the door to the basement or vault ap- 
proached by a long, easy decline. 
I consider it inadvisable to have the 
elevator or lowering device communicate 
directly with the interior of the vault, but 
rather in a hallway or anteroom. The rea- 
sons must, I think, be obvious. 
As a suggestion to your correspondent, I 
will briefly describe our situation. In our 
chapel the vault is situated at the rear of 
the building, partly under and in part out- 
side of the chapel proper. The main stair 
leads from the rear of the auditorium to 
a small hall communicating with the ele- 
vator room, vault and rear entrance. We 
use the elevator at all services, whether the 
body is to be placed in the receiving vault, 
the crematorium, which is also in the same 
building, or conducted to the lot for burial. 
We find this plan saves time and avoids 
confusion. At the close of the services the 
casket, which stands on the bier directly in 
front of the pulpit platform, is lowered to 
the floor below, where it is received by the 
pallbearers or attendants and conveyed to 
the vault, or, in the event of an immediate 
interment, to the hearse in waiting at the 
rear door, which then proceeds to the front 
of the chapel and to its former relative po- 
sition in the funeral procession, the family 
and friends in the meantime taking their 
carriages at the front door. If the body is 
to be placed in the vault and the family 
and friends desire to see it deposited, they 
are conducted downstairs to the vault door 
while the body is being lowered, and may 
either leave the chapel at the rear door or 
ascend the stairs to the front door, accord- 
ing to the arrangements made by the un- 
dertaker. 
Our elevator is the ordinary hydraulic 
piston type and is, in my opinion, preferable 
