San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-05-16
THE CEMETERY QUESTION.
A Humanitarian Opposes the
Scheme of the Riverside Park
Cemetery.

"a
men shall have a habitation-especi-
ally where they have built great
cities-is of paramount importance.
Upon health depends happiness.
But whoever lie healthy If relatively
so in mind and morals cannot rest
content in this solely selfish know
ledge when he finds that the welfare
of his neighbor, through that neigh.
bors apathy in the presence of menace
ing forces, is jeopardized by the pre-
JUDGED or mercenary.
San Antonio has Tor many years
enjoyed the enviable reputation,
widely known, of being a health re-
sort. To The two favorable causes Of
fine air and pure water she mainly
owes her rapid increase in population,
concentration of foreign capital and
general prosperity.
Her citizens are now about to be
deprived of these prime blessings, by
vitiation of the one and poison Ut the
other.
Myself q nonresident. with no
money invested in her real estate or
other money making schemes, 1 yet
feel it my privilege and duty in the
interests of humanity t. enter a
strong, yet not unreasonable protest
against the establishment of q GENE.
terry in such al extremely i'll advised
place as Riverside park.
Having visited many burial places
throughout the United States and
Mexico, l have never yet seen one
situated other-where than on eleva-
ted ground.
Where is the medical man outside
san Antonio who would endorse the
burial OF the dead in a
river bottom?
I challenge the gentleman Of your
board OF healthy who contend that
the black soil at Riverside park Is
best adapted for burial purposes, to
tell us what relation the found iDgre-
dients sustain toward the decomposi.
ton of embalmed bodies.
They should have analysed it care.
fully before recommending it so high
ly as they are stated to have done by
Mr.. Burnett in Sundays issue of the
Express.
Doubt exists with many as to
whether or not your medical advisers
have proper facilities for such analy.
sis.
Do they know that their chosen
place is the very worst that could
have been selected?
And too, Riverside Park is of wood.
ed undulations-the very place for a
park and pleasure seekers in the day
time.
There is not q Texas steer but
knows that encrusted soil surround
ing trees is not q fit resting place for
him at night!
Exhalations of all kinds of obnox-
ious vapors are superinduced by the
black soil in river bottoms and the
presence of outrageous growth of
any and all descriptions.
Again u prevailing summer
winds most calculated to disseminate
current diseases, blow almost con
tinuously over this very spot to the
south of us right into and through
the populous quarters of Your city.
Shall you cause to be added to
their miasmatic breath the deadliest
poison of all, that which under the
conditions named above inevitably
arises from decayipg bodies?
Not alone does the probability Of
converting this park into q burial
ground threaten by its then foul cir
the lives of your children and theiI
best interests.
In some smaller degree only will
the waters of San Antonio river into
which the distiutegrated bodies OF
the dead ultimately fiud their
way, convey destruction to those who
live on it's bapks-not far removed
from the hot bed of msladies.
Did your board of health aver con-
slider the effect of high water periods
when it will have lett by inundation
much that is fatel deposited on the
shores?
How will il fare with the occu-
pants of your newly erected and crow.
ded Though large) asylum who are
left to breathe these eminations from
the soil and surface OF this stream,
drinking In the dreadful properties
with which they are impregnated?
Advocates of this senseless project
may say that Riverside Park is sue.
cession of hills. But for every rise
land the greatest is insignificent) is
there not on either side a valley into
the swampy soil of which all such
filth settles s1oner or later and
there propagates whatever of disease
sediments contain?
There is at present in her cemete-
teries ample room for the interment
of this and the two or three genera
tons of San Antonians to follow.
What is the necessity of any add
tional?
Your dead are now, We their too
near proximity, being buried in pro-
per places, where mouldering into
dust their silent lay cannot transmit
evil to posterity.
Forty centuries agone the Creeks
understanding and sppreciating this