1882 Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings Vo 1 028

15

GRAVES NOT GUARDED BY LAW.
---
Herald's Story of the Pledging
of a Burial Lot Shows it.
---
Officials Claim Present Statutory Re-
strictions Are Altogether Too Lax-
Statement from the Man Who
Loaned Money to a Son on the Lot in
Which His Parents Were Buried.

The story published exclusively in yes-
terday's HERALD about the pledging by
George Sellars of his parents' burial lot in
Mt. Hope cemetery as security for a loan of
$100 from Money Lender Charles A. Loud
has demonstrated the laxity of the law in
regard to the transference of the deeds of
cemetery lots after the death of the
owners.

As the statutes at present stand, there is
no legal security againsty such abuses as
were detailed in the HERALD'S story.

City Registrar William H. Whitmore,
who is custodian of the records of Mt.
Hope cemetery and is quite familiar with
the case in point, was asked his view of the
matter by a HERALD reporter yesterday
afternoon, and said:

"As the law requires that all transfers of
Mt. Hope cemetery lots shall be recorded in
a book kept for that purpose in my office,
my attention was called by Secretary
Rideout to the Sellars-Loud transaction,
and I refused to have the transfer recorded
without the consent of the board of trustees.

"I regard the deal as outrageous and in-
decent, and do not think any such transac-
tions should be tolerated.

"The present law on the matter is alto-
gether too lax. Every one will agree that,
after a lot has been bought for family burial
purposes and has been used for the interment
of the owners, it should be recognized by
law as a trust property for that purpose and
ought not be liable to be sold like merchan-
dise, for debt, or the

Purposes of Unscrupulous Heirs.
"Very few people when they die make
any mention in their wills of their burial
lots. These generally pass to the residuary
legatees, and after one or two removes the
title is generally befogged to greater or
less extent.

"Curious points have come up in regard
to this question before, but the law pays
very little attention to them.

"It needs a flagrant case like the present
one to bring any decided action on the part
of the state. The timely bringing to public
notice of the point involved by the HER-
ALD's story, will probably result in a proper
statute being enacted in which the rights
of all parties, including the dead, shall be
taken care of.

"In several cases people have allowed
friends to be interred in their lots, and
after some years the heirs, wishing to dis-
pose of the lot, which in the mean time has
increased in value, wish to remove the
bodies and sell the lot. This should not be
permitted, and it seems entirely wrong to
me that burial lots should be considered to
have an increased pecuniary value after a
number of years, or from some other cir-
cumstance, particularly if bodies are buried
there.

"It does not require great brains to see
the question involved, and the trustees of
Mt. Hope cemetery are now in a position to
petition the Legislature for an enactment
prohibiting the raising of

Loans on Burial Lots.
and preventing their transfer to other
owners, except by consent of all the heirs.

"It would be different if no bodies are
buried in a lot. Then a transfer might
easily be allowed under proper conditions;
but where interments have been made heirs
should hold the lots not in fee, but as
trustees. When a proper and legal transfer
of a lot has been made, it should be regu-
lated by a police ordinance, that no body
should be removed, except under proper
suspension and into a proper tomb."

Mr. Charles A. Loud, who advanced the
money to Sellars, called at the HERALD
office yesterday afternoon, and claimed
that his position in the transaction had
been inaccurately stated. In the course of
his remarks he said:

I never was in Mt. Hope cemetery in my
life. I never said I was going to have the
bodies now lying in the Sellars lot re-
moved. I never said I was going to contest
the matter in the courts, and never pro-
posed to do anything of the kind. I did
offer the deed for record, and did not know
for two weeks that it had not been re-
corded. It is not true that I tried to find
Mr. Sellars. The money was loaned to him
to go to New York. from which place he

wrote me that he should be in Boston dur-
ing the month of December, but as a matter
of precaution I asked to have the transfer
recorded. I had not then, nor have I now,
any doubt but that the note will be paid.
Mr. Morton was not asked to remove the
bodies. A mountain has been made out of
a molehill, and if I felt at liberty to give to
the public the whole facts in the matter
the most sensitive upon such matters could
have no reason to criticise. Finally, I wish
to say that with those who know me and
my way of doing buseiness it can do me no
harm, and, as for all others, I care not what
they say. The

Publication of the Transaction
was an outrage both to Mr. Sellars and my-
self. My interview with Mr. Charles was
entirely pleasant and agreeable, as also
were my interviews with Mr. Hall and Mr.
Rideout, secretary of the board of trustees
of Mt. Hope cemetery, the only parties out-
side my office I ever talked with about the
matter. I have repeatedly refused to do the
same thing, and only on the most positive
assurance and the best of references that
the note would be paid, and after two
weeks' solicitation, did I consent to advance
the money.

Chairman Hall of the Mt. Hope ceme-
tery board of trustees was asked concern-
ing Mr. Loud's denial of having visited the
cemetery in regard to the removal of the
bodies. He said it was Mr. Loud's clerk who
called there, presumably at his employer's
request, and had held the conversation re-
ported with Supt. Morton regarding the
disinterment of the bodies of Mr. and Mrs.
Sellars.

Secretary Rideout of the board of trus-
tees, in answer to the reporter's inquiry,
said that Mr. Loud, unsolicited by him,
had shown him the type-written paper
signed by George Sellars that he would
have the bodies removed within 10 days.
This paper, Mr. Loud claims, was given
him voluntarily by Sellars.

It was not stated in the HERALD'S story
that Mr. Loud intended to test the matter
in the courts
Aug 7, [18]92

Steps Taken to Widen Mt. Auburn Bridge,
A hearing was given at Watertown to-
day by the commissioners of Middlesex
County, in regard to the proposed widen-
ing of the bridge at Mt. Auburn, which
connects Watertown with Cambridge. Im-
provements already made at Watertown,
where the approach to the bridge has been
widened to eighty feet, leave the public
highway in an unfinished state, unless the
bridge is made to correspond in width. The
city of Cambridge is in favor of doing what-
ever may be decided the best plan for
beautifying the roadway leading to that
city. Various plans have been suggested,
but that most favored by the Watertown
people will necessitate taking a strip of
land from the cemetery from which the
bridge gets its name. The Mt. Auburn
corporation decidedly objects to this plan.
They were represented at the hearing by
Judge Almy, who proposed another scheme,
which appeared to the Cambridge represen-
tative as a feasible one. By adopting this
the land damages would be small, it was
stated. The bridge as it now stands has
outgrown the demands of travel over it.
the matter of deciding upon a plan was
left unsettled at the hearing.

[Illustration: spanning columns 2,3,4]
Caption: NEW CHAPEL AT MT. AUBURN CEMETERY.

The cause of cremation of the bodies
of the dead progresses slowly, but sure-
ly. The increase in the number of in-
cinerations at the Forest Hills establish-
ment the past year was 50 per cent over
previous years. And yet the total num-
ber was but 137 out of the upward of
11,000 dead in Boston during the year.
Cremation still has to encounter a good
deal of unreasonable prejudice, but it re-
mains the most sensible and scientific
method of disposing of the dead.