In my native city, Detroit, four cemeteries, to my knowledge, were closed and given up to the living. In every case save one these burial-grounds were excavated, the coffins, bones, semi-decomposed bodies, etc., carted away, and business blocks erected in their stead. In one of these cemeteries a brother of mine was buried; what became of his last remains I know not. Possibly they were used to fertilize a field; or perhaps cupidity tempted men to steal his body for the purpose of dissection; or an unscrupulous grave-digger may have sent his bones to a bone-mill, vended his coffin-plate, and used his coffin for firewood. Who knows? I would give a great deal if the relics of my brother, decently inurned, could be with me; but alas! I must give up expectations of ever finding any trace of him again. [Illustration: THE PROPOSED DETROIT CREMATORIUM.] Within a quite recent period at least two graveyards in Montreal have been torn up to make public squares; and it is not likely that any more respect will be shown to cemeteries in the future than there has been in the past. Dr. Wm. Porter says: “I well remember, when a boy, seeing our old sexton exhume a body buried for several years,—that of a strong man called away in the prime of life. The rotting coffin was slowly lifted from its damp bed, and the lid being broken, we saw within a horrible mass of putrefaction. Matted hair and decomposing grave-clothes but poorly covered the blackened skeleton as it lay in the once handsome casket, now reeking with the emanation of its loathsome contents. Yet this had been a beautiful grave; roses had blossomed upon it, and the arbor vitæ had whispered to it. There would be but little plea for the grave on the ground of sentiment could we see the changes there taking place; there would be few, if any, who would not choose that the body, after faithful service, should be purified by fire, rather than rot in such a grave.” We are accustomed to consider sacred the venerable remains of our dead, and the simplest memorial of a departed friend makes us, if but for moments, sad. Therefore, all who lay any claim to civilization or humanity must be vehemently opposed to the profane exhibition of the bones of the deceased in bone-houses, where they lie pell-mell in a heap, or catacombs, where they stand braced against the wall, lie in their coffins, or are put away in niches, _i.e._, on the shelf, and where any dawdling fool may inspect them for a small sum of money.