The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-16
CEMETERIES WILL BECOME
 PARKS.
Parks Perhaps Genet eteries-Fffect of
 AbOlishinp Stones and Mounds.

Parks Perhaps Genet eries-Effect of
 Abolishing Stones and Mounds.
 That the cemeteries of the year 2000
 A D. shall be parks, with the chance
 that the so-called parks of the period
 shall look a good deal like cemeteries,
 are possibilities not at all out of keep
 ing with evolutions of the past. In the
 signs of the times both possibilities
 may be regarded with a good deal of
 certainty, the evolution of the park
 cemetery, however, being more immi-
 nent and of a good deal more signifi- canoe. Cemeteries of the future, show ing only the green sweeps of parks,
 yistas of trees, and the dappled sur
 faces of pools, with no trace of sculp-
 tured stone chilling the park effect al-
 ready are promised to a new genera
 ton. At the national association of
 cemetery superintendents in Pittsburg
 recently that association had a glimpse
 Of the future burying ground into
 which person may look one day and
 feel none of the half superstitious re-
 pugnance that Is associated with
 glimpse into the present day cemetery.
 As a matter of truth, the tombstone of
 the old, conservative type is going out
 of fashion
 There is a reason for it. said the
 superintendent of one of the old ceme-
 teries in this city Tt comes about
 through the necessity of making all
 space in the city cemetery available.
 With each burying lot cut to a mini
 mum and headstone at each of them,
 a cemetery that is filled becomes little
 more than a forest of stone shafts.
 There are portions of the older ceme-
 teries in Chicago to-day which have all the stony effect of a city street. At the
 ground level are grass and flowers, but to the eye, looking across lots, there is only stretch of carved stone, with little green to relieve it. This effect ont only Is not pleasing, but 1t is ugly and in bad taste It is expensive, too, cost ing a good deal more than it comes to in effect. How often, passing a ceme- tery gateway, with stone yards cluster ing outside of it, can you look inside and get only the old stone yard impress sion. As for any landscape effect in- side such a cemetery, it can have none. The stone chills it into lifelessness.
 "The tendency to-day is to dlscour- age monuments in graveyards. It is the monument, more than anything else, that has made the cemetery unde- sira ble in a neighborhood. If every burying- ground in Chicago to-day were stripped of its ghostly white shafts and made to conform to the physical lines of park more than half of a neighbor- hoods objections would be wiped out" At the Pittsburg convention it was brought out that in many cemeteries in the United States the mound effect in burial lots has been dispensed with It has been found that the mound in terferes with keeping the lawns smoothly cut, and in doin away with this feature, the dropping of the tomb stone idea has been made easier. In some of the most pretentious of grave yards this level effect in landscape gar dening has given rise to something new in tombstones. A granite slab about two feet long, one foot wide and six inches thick is made to do duty IS is cut into the polished surface and the birth and death record. The lettering stone laid flat into a bed of concrete. It is set so low that it does not inter- fere with the free running of a lawn mower, while its effect on the lawn is not noticeable. Even the corner stones are sunk to the grass level.
 Graceland cemetery In Chicago has done a great deal in furtherance of the park effect in burying- grounds. In virtually all of the newer portions of the cemetery the tombstone has been ruled against, the terms under which lots are sold specifying the heights of stones. The Maplewood section of the and in this plat it is expressly etipula- ted that no curbing shall be laid and < that no headstones shall rise more than one inch above the grass line. There are no graveled walks in this portion of the cemetery, all being sodded and . a grassy effect once un- known. Yet this radical departure from the conventional has been well re- ceived, and at the offices of the compa- ny it was explained that five times as many lots were sold this year as were sold last year in the anne plot In this cemetery this evolution toward park effects has been gradual In the Belle yue section of the cemetery several years ago the limit for headstones was set at eight inches above the grass. In he Fairlawn section the limit later was fixed at four inches, and the recent change to almost the ground level shows the trend of cemetery methods.
 Already in this cemetery there had oeen evidences that to get away from he conventional tombstone might be desirable. In Ridgeland section, where ots are owned by some of the most prominent families in Chicago, there Ire no chiseIed monuments. In one of hese lots is Bryan Lathrop's trans llanted elm, standing for the memory if his parents, and H ext to it is the Henry D. Field lot with only a granite ,owlderand the name Field cut into it. Certainly there are indications that the lark idea in cemeteries is coming" aid Superintendent o. c. Simons, of Iraceland cemetery Tt is not to be | that the monuments now tanding are to be leveled, but it means good deal for the future of parks that the public is re- onciled to buying lots in which head tones may not rise above the grass" ]