Mexico weekly ledger., 1892-08-04
HOW TO GET GOOD ROADS.
Issue Salt River Township Bonds and
Maeadamize Three Miles Each
Way From Mexico.
To the Editor of the Ledger.

To the Editor of the Ledger.
MEXICO, Mo-, July 30.-While the
road question is at the front permit
me to make a few suggestions. II
do it in no special, interested sense,
for l can come as near dispensing
with road travel as any mar in the
county. I have nothing to haul TO
market, either when roads are good
or bad. I have no business to foster
by counting trade with the country
In wet or dry weather. I get my
fuel from Price Guthrie by the rail-
road. My hens supply me with eggs
and the new mill sells me chop to
feed them and 1 get my corn and
oats in the fall season for my horse
in the main. But business is bust
mes and it must have ingress as
well as egress; must have a way to
come in and go out. No mortal
man can make a road bed on red
clay alone so that it will remain in
wet weather. Our roads are down
to the clay and trolls upon the wag-
on wheels until you can't see a
spoke in a single wheel. Only two
things will prevent this result-grav-
Ell or macadam. 1t will take money
to do either one of these. In our
poverty in days passive voted $50, 900
to our first railroad and we paid it.
That strengthened us so that when
the G. & A. railroad came along we
voted to that, including the South
Branch, (if memory is not at faulty
$250,0O0 and paid our bonds, in
terest and principal promptly.
Now, Mexico is in Salt River
township; Mexico is a Third Glass
Charter city. Thirty-eight years
ago last May, when l came to it, it
was an obscure village and where
a be seen many elegant residences
and business houses the large brush
and scrubby fir oaks were thick
enough to form a safe retreat for
whole herds of wild beasts and the
population then did not exceed two
hundred of all the classes.
But comparisons are said to be
odious and we forbear. Now, then,
as l gave up my law books and have
become rusty in statutes during the
last five years, l doubt the existence
of the statutory authority for what
we are bound to do and what l now
recommend. That is for Mexico and
the balance of Salt River township
(for Mexico is the essential part as
well as the head center of the town.
ship to take such steps as will en-
able the proper authorities to issue
Salt River township bonds at a low
rate OF interest, payable at some fu-
ture date, for enough money to
gravel or macadamize the Thompson
Station road-say three miles; the
Paris road, the Hannibal road, the
Louisiana road, the Benton City
road, the Fulton road and Concord
and Columbia road each for three
miles from the corporate limits of
the city of Mexico. Three miles on
each of these eight roads would give
us twenty-four miles of road, max
ing them twenty-five feet Dide.
If no such law exists as viii au-
thorize this, have it passed next
winter, issue the bonds, make the
roads and Mexico can doff its pant
alets and all female attire and dress
like a mantle true image of the
true God. The man who built his
house on the sand was no greater
fool than the man who u%ndertakes
to make a good road over these clay I
hill sides or over wi sloshy bottom
land with simply road grading.
Grade well and then macadamize
and this twenty-four miles of solid,
safe, reliable road will add infinitely {
more to Mexico's natural prosperity :
than q thousand race tracks of any 5
or all shapes. Think of these
things. Respectfully,
M. Y. DUNCAN.