Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-11-10
THE ROADS or ENGLAND.
SmS9fh and Solid HIGHWAYS That Are Well
Built and Carefully Repaired

6n~9th and Solid Highways That Are Well
Built and Carefully Repaired.
The solidity, the smoothness, the con-
tinuous excellence of the highways of
England may well be the wonder and
despair of the American who reflects on
the two streaks of country mud or costly
expanse of nobby, very knobby, city
pavement he has left at home There
roads are made. At home they grow
that is, they are made bad and generally
grow worse. If Thomas Jefferson was
right in saying that the civilization of
country might easily be judged from the
state of its roads, then America is about
two centuries behind anywhere else, in
spite of her boosted progress. We tickle
the sides of a large streak of mud with
scraper and dump more mud in the CEN
ter and complacently go home with the
idea that our road tax is worked for the
year, while it is left to the long suffering
driving public and the chief engineer of
the weather to repair the mischief we
have wrought.
In England the roads arc well made in
the beginning and are carefully looked
after every day instead cf once year,
andnot with what Carlyle calls drib-
bling futility of intention, but with
steady determination Of means to an end
English roads are started ont in existence
well equipped, as all else is there from
which they expect good work and serv-
ice. Careful excavation to good sub
stratum, liberal filing in with sand or
cinders, layer of evenly broken stone
and above that bed of macadam and
cinders mingled make road over which
the heaviest hauling can be and is done,
that invites speed in every horse travel
ing over it, even down to the behemoths
hitched to the beer trucks, and is the
bicycler's fondest dream.
There is not much crown to their road
way, but where the surface is hard and
smoothly rounded, las it is, a high crowned
roadway would be not only unnecessary,
but injurious. For there is drainage and
real drainage. Not a little depression
at the sides, where the water may stand
in reproachful puddles until it pleases
Providence to dry it up with the sun,
but drain carried along the gutter and
having openings at proper intervals,
whence the water is carried to the sys-
TENS of drainage in the adjacent fields
and made to subserve the purposes of
agriculture where desired. The foot
passenger, too, has been remembered by
a good path at one side or the other
made from cinders or Stag pounded fine,
and frequently some land owner who
loved his fellow man has planted long
rows of oak Or ash or Scotch fir or elm
that arch and shade the way and are
things Of beauty and joys forever.
Presently it rains, as it has fashion
of doing in that country, and where there
is a weak place in the surface the road is
guttered. Is it left to the forgetful at
tention of whom it may concern or neg
lected until all the rest of the way is
like unto it? Oh, no! On every road
side are neat little piles at irregular in
tervals of broken stone or furnace refuse
or smelling Stag or whatever may be the
best material of the district, and when
arut is discovered the workman in charge
of that division fills it up neatly, and in
a couple Of days it is worked down
smoothly, indistinguishable from the
rest. The drains, too, are kept clean and
flowing.
So the roads are kept clean and hard
and smooth and solid, and so they wind,
a white and perfect track, amid the
greenery and light and shade of that
parklike country, and the pedestrian and
equestrian and the cyclestrian get their
fill of beauty that is soul satisfying to
gaze on and impossible to describe.
The care of the roads throughout Eng
land is vested in county councils, the
members of which are gentlemen of
weight and standing in their respective
districts, and who serve, like members of
parliament, without other compensation
than the honor of the position. Yet their
work is none the less we'll done that it is
gratuitous.
A chief engineer IS their adviser and
executive, assisted by one. two or three
assistant surveyors, according to the ex-
tent of the country covered by the coun-
ty limits. New roads are not construct
ed without their necessity being we'll
defined by commission or jury of in
quiry for that purpose, and where dam
ages are held to be inflicted, compensa-
ton is given, whether for destroying an
old highway or making new one
Cor. st. Louis Republic.