The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-03-19

There was legislation from time to
time. In Queen Mary's time. for in
stance, an act made each parish re-
sponsible for its own highways. In
different parts of the country good
deal of this kind of work must always
have been going on, but so Isolated
We're the various efforts and so slight
were the means of disseminating in
ly no progress seems to have been
made, even in the immediate vicinity
of large towns.
In 1856 Mr.. Nash stated before COM
mittee of the house of commons that
the road between Camberwel and the
Elephant and Castle was in several
places hardly passable by vehicles, and
that quite recently several carriages
had had their perehes broken by the
pitching about in holes and ruts. If
that was the condition of things round
about London in 1886, it is easy to be-
lieve reports of what they were little
earlier in date and little further
afield. In 1927 George II and Queen
Caroline were a whole night in coming
from Kew to st. James palace, owing
to the state of the road, and once dur
ing the night they were completely
overturned. One may read of a for
eign prince come on a visit to this
country getting stuck fast in the road
in travelling up from Portsmouth, and
spending fourteen hours at stretch
without being able to leave his car
rage OF get IQOuLnIul OIL lOOQ. LII lnC
middle of the eighteenth century the
Duke of Somerset, having occasion to
travel from London to Petworth, sent
a servant on before him to herald his
approach, and to give orders that keep
ers and other persons having knOwl-
edge of the holes and sloughs should
meet his grace with lanterns and poles
to help him on his way. But what no
doubt had good deal to do with the
general apathy on the matter was the
fact that times when most of the
| land of the country was un1nclosed 1t
was often a very easy thing, when a
road had been trampled and ploWed
into a slough. to strike off the old track
and make a new one.
Nothing could more strikingly show
the absolute lack of professional road
makers than the fact that the very first
expert in the history of English high
ways was a man who not only had had
! no experience when he took his first
contract, but had been stone blind from
his childhood That was John Metcalf-
Blind Jack of Knaresborough." 1t had
i been determined in 1865 to make a
good, substantial road between Min
skip and Farnsby, and Metcalf put in a
! tender for three miles. He knew moth
| ing about it, but he had proved himself
| in other ways a clever, enterDr1s1ng
man, and as there was nobody, to be
/ had who understood the bushes any
better than he did he got the contract.
He made his own surveys and superin-
tended the work personally, and not
withstanding his blindness made a good
job of it. He was roadmaking and
| bridge building for thirty years, and
seems unquestionably entitled to be re-
garded as the pioneer of English road
making It was not until fifty years
after he began that Telford and Ma
cadam were heard of in this connection.
He led the way, and actually carried a
road across a bog in almost precisely
the manner in which Stevenson after
ward carried his railway across Chat
Moss. Blind Jack of Knaresborough''
led the way, and then the development
of a splendid coaching system made an
| imperative demand for good main roads
and called forth the men for the work.
Macadam did not appear in the business
! till 1875 He brought roadmaking to the
| highest pitch of perfection just in time
to see the whole coaching system super
seeded by railways. and between 10000
and 900 miles of turnpike roads APP
parently rendered almost as obsolete as
the old bride paths had been by the
introduction of coaches. 1t is curious
to. reflect that If railways had come
| only little earlier and before good
roads had been created for the coaches
| we might to this day have had hardly
any good roads in the kingdom, anc
when our engineers and mechanicians
/ had made bicycles and motor cars they
would have found it necessary to pro-
vide the roads for running them on
London Globe.