The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1875-02-18

If the winter, thus far, has suggested any
one thing as a necessity for our borough, it
is that our streets or rather side walks need
thorough overhauling, The icy condition
of both sidewalks and streets for month
past-and the same condition has each win
ter prevailed for years past-are not only
disgraceful, but they may any day become
the cause of great damage to US pecunlarily
and we may become mulct in thousands of
dollars payable for broken limbs, &c, grow
ing out of falls upon our slippery side walks.
The fact is that our streets arc either too
high for our side walks, or the sidewalks are
too low for our streets, and thus with our
miserable drainage, though we have every
facility afforded by the lay of the land for
most perfect drainage, in every accumula-
ton of snow, followed by rain causes Doth
street and sidewalks to become continuous
sheet Of slush, which. in turn becomes ice,
dangerous to locomo;ion in whatever way
attempted
1t is not, however, practicable in view of
the present condition of our borough finances
to remedy the evil at once, but we can inau-
gurate plan which, in the course of 4 very
few years, would give us streets second to
those Of no other town and city on the con-
tinent, and at very little expense compare
lively with the benefit derived from the ac-
complishment Of the work To secure this
end, it would be necessary to lay the founda-
ton at once, by having our town plot run
out by competent engineer, with view of
ascertaining its elevations and depressions,
and the establishment Of regular system OF
grades, and these SO arranged as that each
street should be made to carry off the water
accumulating, during a rain or thaw, on a
certain and fixed amount Of territorial sur
face. This done, stringent ordinances strin
gently enforced, requiring each property
holder to do certain quantity Of work each
year-the amount so fixed as not to be bur
deusome to aDy-under the supervision of
an experienced road master, would find us in
condition to pass winter with our streets
and sidewalks free from ice, and spring,
summer and fall with streets comparatively
free from mud. The cost of an Engineers
services would probably reach four hundred
dollars, but then we would know precisely
what to do and how to go to work to do it,
which of itself would be worth dozen times
the amount.
Some fifteen or sixteen years ago gentle
man skilled by practice in the science OF
Engineering offered to do the whole thing
merely for the cost Of the necessary instru-
ments-some thirty-fve or forty dollars
with no compensation for his time. Then,
however, our borough fathers were carried
away with the dot and go one principle and
! kneoo that the better plan was to fill up q
! puddle, and then wait until future rain re-
vealed another puddle to fll up, accounting
nature as by far the best Engineer. They
did Mt believe in this thing on three legs, and
man blinking through it, at another mar
with poll and little red and white block
fastened on it, and another couple of mer
measuring out the ground with wires linked
together My! They could not think o
paying the forty dollars for such nonsense
whereas, if they had done so, and then pas
sed stringent ordinances for something more
than notoriety in their breach, to day {
hundred dollars of benefit for each dola
spent would have been, confessedly, a small
estimate of the percentage gained from the
investment. And now this thing is yet to b.
done, and the sooner it is done, the soone
we will learn, just what it is so necessary fo
us to know-how to go to work to get ou
streets in such shape as will warrant the fre'
passage Of water without tearing them all t,
pieces, and enable US to walk our sidewalk
in winter without endangering life and liml
at every step we take.
i We throw out these ideas suggestively
aud may revert TO the subject again.