The San Francisco call., 1895-10-18
A RICHMOND BOULEVARD,
PLAN TO MAKE ONE ON FIRST
AVENUE Now BEING FOR
MULATED.
CIRCULATION OF A PETITION
AGAINST THE FURTHER SALE OF
BURIAL LOTS.

The Richmond Property Asso-
citation at its last meeting took the ceme-
terry question fully in hand. A resolution
was adopted urging the Board of Super
visors to prevent the further sale of burial
lots within the City limits. An ordinance
was drawn up, which will be laid before
the board, making it unlawful for any per-
son or association or corporation to bury
or inter any dead body in the cemeteries
in the City, nor shall they sell any plats
of land to be used for burial purposes. A
violation of this ordinance shall be mis-
demeanor, with the penalties of fine or i'm
prisonment.
"This proposed ordinance" said Attor-
ney Charles II. Hubbs, yeste rday, "would
not interfere with those already holding
burial lots in the City cemeteries, but
would stop the further sale of burial places.
In the course of time interments would
cease within the corporate limits. This is
not much, but it is the beginning, and q
continuous effort will be made until the
graveyards are all out of the City. Those
well-known menaces to health must go,
and Richmond district is the most inter
ested in their removal.
'In the matter of the ownership of
the burial lots there is some doubt about
title to the freehold. 1t is really only an
easement in the land and is subject to such
CudHSCS dS llc dlltIcu SIICuIlotdlCSS Vi
the neighborhood may render necessary.
Under the head of the Modern Cemetery
in the American Law Register is the fol-
lowing:
Every owner of cemetery lot must be
deemed to have purchased and to hold it for
the sole purpose of using it as place of burial,
and he is bound TO know at his peril that il
may become offensive by the residence of many
people in its vicinity, and that its use must
yield to laws for the suppression of nuisances
must give way to the advance of population.
Interments must ultimately cease and the
remains OF the dead that are capable OF re-
moval must be reinterred in new grounds;
and every lot-owner holds his title subject to
that con t1ngency and no conditions or cove
nants contained in deeds appropriating the
lands to particular uses can prevent the Legis-
lature declaring such use unlawful, and COM
pelling the removal OF all bodies from the
All individual rights of property, whether
they rest on absolute conveyances or mere
licenses, are subject to laws of this character.
1.-The American Cyclopedia, volume 8,
page 542, speaks with startling clearness
on the subject of the unhealthy conditions
resulting from the neighborhood of long
used graveyards:
When numerous buriels within limited
space have occurred, the ground becomes sat
urated with the products of the decomposition
to such degree as to be incapable of further
absorbing them; under such circums stances
cape directly into the atmosphere.
LET the advocates of the cemeteries who
urge their remaining and filling up with
continuous burials therein on their present
localities in the City seriously think of
the imperiled condition of the health of
| the residents adjacent to the cemeteries.
| ask them why not join us and aid In
the promotion OF the health and enterprise
of Richmond District by having the dead
sacredly placed where their remains will
not be menace to the living?''
Real estate sales in the district are in
creasing, and prices are moving upward.
Block-grading and street-paving are being
actively pushed ahead, and there is q
project on foot to make First avenue from
the Presidio to the park wide smooth
driveway. The Southern Pacific Com
pany recently relinauished their franchise
on that thoroughfare, and now the avenue
is practically free from streetcar franchises.
Its dedication as handsome boulevard
rests with the property-owners.
Several enthusiastic residents of Rich.