The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1903-09-12
The French Way of Iookirs After Roads.

~AON ENTONE Is a pretty little
\ y town with d marked Eng
q NH G lish tinSe to its colony. 1t
4 AVA + has Il fine quay. not unlike
1oE the Promenade des Aug
la!s ut Nice but smaller. Owing to
| the way the mountains curve around
the town 1t is said to have the mildcst
| climate on the Riviera. Here We take
| the lower Cornlche Road to return to
Nice by way Of Monte Carlo and Mo-
naco. This road is liveler than the
upper road, being much more fire.
quented. American farmers and other
road users will smile to know that this
magnificent highway runs for couple
Of hundred miles along the coast; that
it IS guarded with stone parapets prac-
tically all the way: that In particularly
bad places the parapcts are crowned
with iron fences about three feet high :;
that 1t Is carried over gullies and
streams on magnificent stone bridges
as good as those of the railways In our
country; that at times 1t plerces the
spurs Of the mountains with long and
lofty tunnels; Incredible as it may
seem, they have bored tunnels through
the solid rock foc a wagon road; as Il
to flout the practical American they
have sometimes cut the rocky portal
Of the tunnel into ornamental shapes.
Fancy spending such an amount OF
money on Il mere wagon road! Fancy
boring tunnels for it to run through
solid rock. Above ALL fancy making
ornamental doors to the tunnel.
There are other things about the Cor
niche Read that excite the contempt OF
the practical American mind. AS
national highway it is under the Min
lister Of Roads and Bridges, one Of the
French Cabinet officers. Like all the
national highways. 1t is divided into
sections OF few hundred kilometres.
Each section is in charge Of section
man, who spends his entire time patrol
ing the road and mendlng 1t az soon rs
a break appears. He has all the neces-
sary tools, while along the roadside are
little piles Of broken rock. pulverlzed
TO different degrees Of t!neness, With
which to repair breaks ut once. He IL
like street sweeper on q city block.
and on the block beyond him there Ia
man to attend to the next section. AS
l saw these poor purbllnd Frenchmen
carefully mendins little holes In the
road - holes which we would leave
alone until they developed into gullies
and then ''mend them next winter"-1
could not but feel proud OF the supe-
rior methods OF my country.
Another piece of French folly was
this: Every half-nlle we would encoun-
ter small two-wheeled sprlnklins
cart about the size of barrel, drawn
by lad. This ut once provokes Amer
leans to roars of laughter: 1t IS such
small business and so ridiculous, don't
you know. to sprinkle road 200 miles
long with n sprinkler the size OF bar
rel. True. this barrel was stamped
"Villefranche," which is little town.
and further back there was enc
stamped "Mentone," which is also not
Il large place. All along the road there
are many barrels. But We do better in
our country. When the roads near a
small town need spr!nkl;ng, the super
visors try to raise the monay-and fall. |
They try to buy big sprinkling cart
which, with the horses and all. costs |
about $2OOO-and fail. Then the citi- |
zens try to raise the money by sub
scriptIcn-and fail. Then the county |
papers take 1t up and try to raise the |
fail. Then all hands be-
moan the lack OF public spirit, and go
to work to get the sprinkling Garland
fail. Here the small towns get sDrink-
ling carts and do it by hand. It's true
the operator Is only an eighteen-year-
old boy, but In many Of the small
towns Of our country the same boy
would be loaflng round the corner gro-
Gerry chewing tobacco. However. q
two-horse sprinklIng cart is a more
sight; perhaps the American
way is the better way.-The ArgOnaut