Morning journal and courier., 1885-08-11
A HEAVY FUNERAL HILL.

The Cost Of The Grant Obseq quies-
 The Undertaker's BiIl Alone Twen'
 ty Thousand Deliberations FOI
 Beaulifying The Site Of The Tomb.
 NEW YORK, Aug. 10.-After the body oi General Grant was removed from the fdner. al car on Saturday ut the tomb the car was taken back to the iron yard of J. B. x J. M Cornell, foot of Twenty sixth street, where it has since remained. To-day it was deter. mined, in order to prevent the car from ultimately falling into the hands of unfeel, ing speculators, to break it up. The funeral bill will be very heavy. The undertaken was employed jointly by the family of General Grant and the city of New York, but it is said that the entire bill will be paid by the city. The undertaker's bill alone will not be less than 20,000. Five hundred carriages were at the funeral. These were engaged for the day and this part of the bill will be $5 O00 The black horses that were attached to the funeral car were all carefully selected. There were twenty-four of these and their drapings cost $250. The disposition of some of the most valuable mementoes of the funeral has already been decided upon. The large American flag that was laid on the ice casket at Mt. McGregor will be retained by Colonel Grant One of the flags that was on the funeral car will be given to U. s. Grant post, G. A. R., one to the Seventh regiment and one to Mrs. Dr. Newman. There were four flags on the car, but in what way the other one is to be disposed of hes not been decided upon.
 Last week Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape engineer who was detailed to se- lect site for General Grants monument, wrote letter to Park President Crimmins in which he expressed the opinion that the site chosen for the Grant tomb and proposed monument in Riverside Park was not suit able one. It would be extremely unfortu- nate, he thought, if the remains of the dead hero were brought into close association with the gayety of the promenade or if the city adopts plans for the terminal arrangements of the promenade which would destroy it's main character or which will prevent the promenade from having the great northern view as it's terminus. The latter has caused great deal of discussion and MT. Calvert Vaux. the landscape gardener of the Central Park, has replied to it at length. He says that there is nothing in the most of Mr. Olmstead's objections. He favors erecting the monument and final tomb on the southern portion of what is called the sLoop" and then it would be prac- tically out of the park with public road all around it. Small pathways leading to it could also be made and the view from the drive and park would be in no way impaired. Mayor Grace said to-day: ''The actual site of the monument or what sort of monu- ment it will be has not been decided upon. I do not think a better site could possibly have been chosen than the one near the tenn porary tomb and there is plenty of room for a very large monument without obstructing the view or in any way destroying the beauty of the spot I shall certainly take no action in the premises. The whole mat ter will be referred to Mir. Vaux and Super intendent Parsons and they will report to the park commissioners as to the best site for the proposed monument" It was said at the office of the park commissioners to-day that the plan of laying out the northern part of Riverside had been modified to correspond to great extent with the views of MT. Olm- stead. At first it was intended to have the permanent monument at point about two hundred feet north of the tomb, but it will now be placed directly back of and near the tomb. The Claremont House will remain and the handsome cliff will be reserved for those who visit it for recreation. From 121st street to 125th street in the park will be set apart exclusively for the burial ground of General Grant and roadway will be laid out north of the tomb on & line with 125th street so as to separate the burial ground from the other portions of the park. The park commissioners have determined to se- cure the land lying east of Riverside Park, extending to Claremont avenue on one side and from 122d street to 127th street. AS soon as the park commissioners have secured a title to these grounds they will be laid out to correspond with the grounds in the vicinity of the tomb and thus the necessary quiet will be secured to the spot in which the gen. erals remains are deposited. The key of the vault is kept in the large safe in the park commissioner office.
 The effect of the presence of so many thousand strangers in the city was to great ly increase the business of the elevated roads and the various telegraph companies. Or Friday the Western Union Telegraph com pany handled 931 ,160 messages, it being tht largest number ever sent and received in single day. The elevated roads carried 400, 07S passengers and the receipts aggregated $33, ,I19.