the sorrow is to be respected, and is not to be compelled to go skipping over the coun try in search of its object. As it has been expressed, although the husband or wife of a deceased person h primarily entitled to designate the place of burial, it by no means follows that the body, after it has been laid at rest in a suitable place by the consent of such husband or wife, can be afterwards disinterred and trans ported from place to place at the mere will or caprice of such husband or wife. When it comes to a burial, it ought to be clone in a way that will be beyond the desire to undo. If the transportation business is likely, the corpse had better be reduced to a few ounces of ashes and kept in a vase on the parlor mantel, then they can always go along with the other household gods in the fur niture van. The cases involving the questions of re moval of the dead body are of very rare oc currence, and still more rare are those cases deciding who is originally entitled to bury a human body; and for the sake of decency it is well that it is so. The cases on ques tion of removal all agree upon the principle that the jurisdiction of subject belongs to equity, and that the chancellor will exercise it with great care; what is fit and proper to be done must depend upon the special cir cumstances of each case, having regard to what is due to the natural feelings and sen sibilities of individuals, as well as to what is required by considerations of public propri ety and decency. This is illustrated in the following cases: A husband consented to the burial of his wife in a lot owned by another, but not freely nor with the intention or understand ing that it should be permanent. The burial had been in a lot of two sisters of his wife at a time when the husband was in great dis tress of mind and worn out by caring for his wife during her last illness. The body of his wife was in a lot which he had no right to take care of, or adorn, or be buried in by her side. It was decided that a court of equitv
may permit the husband to remove her body, and the coffin and tombstone furnished by him, to his own land, and may restrain inter ference with such removal. A wife and child had been buried in a lot belonging to the wife's mother, and this was found to be with the consent, approval and satisfaction of the husband and father. After a lapse of three years an alienation occurred between the husband and his de ceased wife's relatives. The former then sought to remove the remains of his wife and child. The court asks the question, ought he to be allowed to exhume their bodies and to carry them away to another place because of his alienation from his wife's family? He certainly has no property in them which would justify such a proceed ing. His right to fix the spot where the remains of his wife and child should rest has been once exercised and cannot, after the lapse of three years, be recalled or altered, when its effects would be to harrow up the feelings of others and to disturb unneces sarily the bodies which should be left to re pose in the graves to which they were con signed. In this case the mother of the de ceased wife offered to permit the husband and father to adorn the graves as he might see fit, and also offered the right of burial for himself by the side of his wife. The court was of opinion that these conditions were proper, and decreed that upon the proper as surances being given the husband and father for the fulfillment of these conditions the bill asking removal of the remains would be dis missed. In a New York case, where a son sought to remove the remains of his father which had been previously decently buried by the widow, he was not permitted to do so. be cause of the fact that the body had been buried in a proper place without dissent and that it ought not afterwards to be disturbed without the consent of all the parties inter ested. A proper respect for the dead, a re gard for the tender sensibilities of the living, and the due preservation of the public health
