The record-union., 1894-10-26
SOME FACTS FOR TAXPAYERS TO
CONSIDER.

tits we'll that object lessons be some
times presented to the people as the most
forcible means OF impressing important
truths upon the public mind.
For instance, there is scarcely city or
county official in this State-excepting
always engineers-who does not fancy
That, without any experience. training or
technical knowledge upon the subject, he
can construct macadam or other high
way. The result is that a vast deal of
public money is wasted upon streets and
roads because of want of knowledge of
the simplest elemental truths.
On Monday night in the Board of City
Trustees it developed that certain alley,
supposed to have been macadamized at
heavy cost to someone, had been simply
strewn with coarse stone which would
not pack, would not form roof and is
acting as seive, making the latter condi-
ton of that roadway worse than the
former one of mud and slush.
This was the result evidently of work
by someone ignorant of macadam roads
and'the principles of their construction
yet nothing is easier to learn. However,
county or city officer being once in
vested with the official toga is beyond
and above the vulgar task of learning.
lie knows it all, simply because election
or appointment has in some mysterious
way qualified him. So it it is that we go
on in the most wasteful and deplorably
lmprovident manner in road building.
In certain nearby county a piece of
alleged macadam road was not long ago
constructed. 1t was simply coarse broken
stone placed upon grade of sand and
alluvial soil, and left to be packed by the
wheels of wagons and the feet of horses.
Yet nothing is better known to real road
builders than this, that wagon wheels dis
place unpacked broken stone. When,
aftera long time, kind of packing re-
suits. the crown, if not the grade of the
road, is destroyed, and every sem alliance
of macadam roof is gone.
In the case referred to farmers very
Justly complained that the county had no
right to wear out their horses and wagons
III packing stone roads: accordingly the
officials hauled to and put upon the top of
the broken stone lot of soluble soil.
If there is any one thing better known
than another among real road builders. it
is that the short and swift way to ruin
such stone road is to put earth on top of
1t. The earthly matter is driven and
washed down between the units of the
stone and cohesion and cementing are
done for effectually on that road.
In the case of the alley debated in the
Board of Trustees, Monday night, MEM
Der of the board. the extent of whose
knowledge of road-making may be in
tefred. actually proposed that lot of sand
should forthwith be purchased and
placed upon the coarse broken stone, his
idea being that by such means a good
roadway could be made. Fortunately
there were members of the board who
realized that the manner of making
macadam surface is not by such process.
Had the original proposition prevailed,
that alley would have been "a sight to
behold" while the idea of its ever being
passable by reason of a smooth and drain
ing surface would have been speedily
abandoned. On the contrary it would have
become seive for rainfall and verita-
BILE bog. with wobbling broken stone
swashing about in it with the passage of
every wheel.
We know of case in another county
in California where a road has been
covered with broken stone without grade
lines being established. without reducing
the inequalities of the surface, without
compacting the substructure, and without
asserting the stone so as to place the
larger particles beneath and the finer on
top. Not only this, there was no heavy
rolling or packing at the beginning or the
finish, it being LETT to wheels and hoofs to
do that. when in fact they will displace, not
pack or make true surface. So, too, 1t
was noted that whereas four inches of
macadam on a prepared substructure
would nave been ample, the finer stone
and stone dust being but one and quar-