Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-01-03

wv e"aS II thS county ulScOntl0ueS the
use Of the building while it is still in
good condition. he will pay for the Ium-
Der. We have made mistakes, / ac-
knowledge. but that we have done any
thing we are ashamed of l deny.
Does the White Chapel team work
any road in Northumberland county,"
In regards to that will say that donot
remember that they have done so; and
they never have by my instructions,
but Mr.. Beane who is supervisor of
Mantua district may have had them
work on some road which is dividing
line between the two counties. White
Chapel owns no team, they belong to
the county.
AS to your statement that the roads
are In terrible condition. know that
they are not as good as they ought to
be, but have never heard any of the
drummers say that they were worse
than those in the adjoining counties.
They travel over the roads much more
than you and l, and l have frequently
heard that they said they knew when
they got to Lancaster county by the
good roads. You might be a little
more charitable and attribute the bad
condition of roads from Wheaton to
Litwalton being-as you stated in your
letter-bottomless, which max them
much more expensive. This small bot
tomless place is not over half a mile
from Wheaton, think, and after hav-
ing thirty-five hundred bushels of shells
put on it, you still complain that it is
terrible. Do you think that yours is
the only neighborhood in which the cit
liens would like to have the roads
shelled?
You say l cannot make. use of the ex-
cuse-that so many are making use Of
that labor is scarce because you offered
to take the road from Wheaton to Lit
walton and have it worked. AS l re-
member it you wanted the tax Of all
the citizens in that neck including those
of the village of Wheaton to work that
road only four miles long.
How would those who live on the road
from Chinn's mill to the sign-board.
near Mr.. Robert Bush's place get
theirs worked? You must help them as
you have been doing.
l do not think much of contract work
for roads, as l have not heard of any
good results from that system, except
in one case, and that was across the
bay.
1t is true as you say that we have Il
good surplus on hand, as you call it, and
L find that it is very good article to
have; but it is only the district that has
it, not the county by any means.
1t was because the Board of Super
visors have adopted the Edmonson
Road law, which requires a Superin-
tendent of Roads to be appointed by
the Board. When that was done | had
to sell the team belonging to White
Chapel District to the county, and think
that If l had not have had q surplus
some years ago, which enabled me To
buy the oxen, the roads in White Chapel
would not now be in anything like as
good shape as they are. The Board also
decided to try to work the whole county
with one team, which / think they have
found out now cannot be done, for the
reason that our roads are always very
bad in winter-and no amount of money
which we can get can make them 9TH
erwise-and we can only renew the
work. When the spring comes all the
districts want working at the same time
and contend that it is impossible tc
keep them in order with one set OF
team. The people of the district in
which the teams are working are salts.
fed because they do not consider the
condition of the other districts in which
there is scarcely any work being done.
have accepted the opinion of the
Board and have done the best I could
to carry out their ideas, but think we
are all satisfied now that the plan is not
a success. Another mistake we have
made-and j blame myself for that as
much as anyone else-is that we bought
too many expensive road machines,
NN~ CIV SAA0S eiAlC we uiQ IlOt hllOW Oh any
others.
There ought to be set of team in
each district in my opinion. would
like very much to please everybody if
| could, but l did not expect to do that.
Christ did not do it, how can 1?
Now, sir, 1 have answered all of
your questions that ought to be answer
ed by me, fully squarely, and willingly,
and will answer any others, relating to
the roads-in which l take very much
interest-but when you undertake to
persuade me to do what / know is
wrong, by the lines which you quoted in
your letter-a part of which were in
tended to lead men in the path of vir-
tue and truth, instead of the path of
evil-t must close by saying, am not
yours. as | am not coming.
j. VIM. CHowNING.
SOME FIRES.