Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1897-06-10
A PROFOUND MYSTERY.
No One Can Tell why So Many Fnrm-
ers Oppose Good Roads.

AsU ZINC GtAAA CAA w ny 30 many n LkAS
ers Oppose Good Roads.
Each season, an old hymn reminds us,
has it's own disease. That is beyond all
question true of those rural neighbor-
hoods in which the movement for good
roads has not become potent and eff
feetiye. The old y-go-lucky high
ways are always bad, but with diff
ferent kind of badness for each sea-
son. At what time they are worst is
question to be decided by individual
taste. Last spring, when the frost was
coming out of the ground and sticky
mud was more than half hub-deep,
some thought they were at their worst
estate. Others reckoned them worse
il midsummer, when they were beds
of impalpable red or yellow dust from
one to several inches deep, interspersed
with big pebbles and cobblestones.
Again there are those who reckon the
fall or the winter the worst time of all,
a0d, indeed, not without much cause.
Many weeks ago the trouble began.
Autumnal rains soaked the soil and
made the roads pasty, with deep, stir
mud that was hard to drag wheels
through, and that became and remained
cut and crosscut into all manner of
luts. Then COLI ''snap" came, and
the mud was frozen almost as hard
as stone, and the roads presented sur
faces which for roughness were un-
l,aralleled and indescribable Driving
over them, even at walking pace, was
torture compared with which travel
on a corduroy road is pleasure and on
cobble-paved street sybaritic lux
ury. After days of such agony for
horses and drivers, and inestimable
wear and tear on vehicles, the most
travelled roads began to be worn down
fairly smooth. Then came thaw, and
mud again, and ruts, and the roads
were soon as rough as before, and so re-
NAMED until the next freeze hardened
them into the likeness of volcanic
scoriae. And when at last the snow
came the roads beneath it were SO
rough that sleighing was well-nigh inn
possible. The runners cut through to
the ruts and "hubs" and. hummocks,
and the sleigh joited worse than ever
did springless car on ''rocky road I'd
Dublin" So it will go on all winter,
until the vernal thaw comes, and the
frost breaks up, and the very bottom
seems to fall out of the wretehed
sloughs which men in grim irony call
highways.
Really, one would think that with
such varied vet incessant object les
sons before them. men would learn to
serve their own best interests by con-
structing decent roads. Yet too gem
orally they do not. One says itwould
cost too much, ignoring the patent fact
that it would really reduce taxes and
save money. Another wants 'the
state to do it, unmindful that he and
his neighbors and his village are in
tegral parts of "the state" A third
wants to postpone the undertaking un-
til the village is incorporated, though
as matter of fact this very neglect of
the roads is one of the strongest reasons
why the place is unfit for and unworthy
Of interpolation. Still another Is un-
willing to spend money for the benefit
of bicycle riders and the city folks who
come out for just a little while in sum
mer with their fancy turnouts, the fact
being. of course, that the farmers and
permanent residents of the villages
themselves use the roads, and suffer
from their badness, and would be bene-
flied by their improvement, ten times
more than all others put together. The
,bicyclists can make their runs In other
directions where the roads are good
The ''city folks" with light pleasure
carriages and little-worked horses, can
endure poor roads with comparative in
difference. But the people who live
right there, and have to use the roads,
not merely for pleasure but for work
and business, every day the year round,
they are those who suffer most from
bad roads, and who would get most
good from good roads. That any one of
them should for moment fail to per-
ceive that fact and to act upon it is one
of the ncomprehensible mysteries Of
the age.-N. Y. Tribune.