The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-03-14
Public improvements.

To THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES: 1t
appears to me that in one important
feature the people of the city are to be
disappointed, and it may be that the
foundation is being laid for future dis
satisfaction and complaints which would
be unjust to any council or board of
public works.
We find in the press and in the COM
munity an undertone Of expection that
when the appropriations have been
made, by some magical process, the
mud will in little time disappear and
illness and decency and a roseate hue
cover the whole as mantle of beauty;
but there might better be plain un-
Outstanding of the matter now.
The unavoidable fact will be that the
approval of the bonds will be the be-
ginning of mud and trouble. In the
business section we will have first the
sewers. On the wider streets perhaps
this work will not entirely shut off the
traffic, but it will be such an impede
mont that rolling loads will take ada
cent streets. Then will follow the paw
ing. A portion of the dirt must be
carted away, and the use of the street
from curb to curb for at least one
square at time, discontinued. We
cannot have the whole business part of
the city torn up at once in this way,
and it follows that the work must be
done in sections and so managed as to
interfere as little as possible with the
traffic of the city, and that it cannot be
complete in one year, nor perhaps in
two.
Let the people fully understand
tho matter and be patient, giving to the
Council a cordial support in all good
works and credit for all that they do
we'll, and within seasonable time
there will rise out of the mud city
which, in all its sanitary features, may
justly claim to be the model city of the
South.
There is another point to which 1
would call your attention. 1t is pro-
posed in the city survey to locate the
lines of all lots and to designate all cor
ners by stone monuments or iron bolts,
and to run these lines from descriptions
taken from the records.
The city may locate your lot and mine
today. 1 would cheerfullY pay the
necessary tax, and so would you; but
next week you may buy o foot front
from your neighbor to provide the re-
CURED room for your new house, and
ouO hOAo ooJ may ooii w my lBuDOr
strip of the back end of my lot that l
don't care for, and he does for larger
garden; and so the process continues.
A thousand corner posts soon take the
place Of the iron bolts, and after two or
three years but little may remain to
show for an expenditure by the city OF
three or four thousand dollars.
Let the city locate street lines and
place permanent monuments, as reliable
starting points, at street intersections
from which may be dated all deed de-
scriptions, and the owner of lot may
be trusted TO get all that he is entitled
to, The new map should show all lots
but survey for that purpose would cost
but little compared to cost of making
abstracts of titles and placing corner
bolts. The office re cords and maps for
assessors use should show tho lot front
or street measurement with absolute ac-
curacy. OBSERVER.
Ladies, clean your kid gloves with
Mather's Glove Cleaner. For sale only
at Snyder & McBain's dry goods store.