The Newtown bee., 1909-04-09
Circulation
TOWN TOPICS.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
 ROAD QUESTION.
Strikes Out From the Shoulder.

Editor of Newtown Lea,
 Eewtown, Conn.
 Tear Sir: In nearly every paper that is printed in the surrounding
 towns for the past few weeks there
 have been all kinds of articles in re-
 gard to state road work. And there
 have been many famous speeches
 made within the past few months
 telling the amount of money that
 the state has spent and the great
 good that has been done. It has been
 great pleasure 10 q great many peo-
 pie who have had an opportunity to
 hear these speeches in regard to road
 work.
 It is one of the easiest things in
 the world to go before an audience
 ard explain just what should be done
 with the roads in the different towns,
 how much those roads should be laid tout, the length of time the roads should last if properly attended to.
 But to come right down to good solid
 business would it not be great deal
 better to finish up some of the road
 work which is started in the various
 towns and for which there is no
 reason in the world why it could not
 have been done instead of starting
 piece of road work and tearing up, the roads and then leaving it for the horses to go through all winter. It will be only question of time when the roads in the various towns will
 be entirely grown up to brush, pro |viding the state does not step in and Ftake this matter in hand. Even the main roads leading from one town to another are so bad that in many cases it is almost impossible to drive over them with top carriage with out having the top pulled off by the
 brush. Then again, our roads are
 becoming. narrower each year, owing to the fact that they are not proper ly worked. There used to be time when the roads were let out by con- tract to the various farmers who had a very good knowledge of road work and kept the roads in fair condition While there is more money spent at the present time in some of our small towns than there was some years ago, still, our roads are becoming worse each year. In a great many cases this is caused by some of the town officials not being practical men and in some cases the officials are too old to supervise road work. There is one other reason why we do not have better roads in some of our towns and that is because before each election there is more road work done for 10 days previous than in any other time of the year. It has become so that men that are liable to vote the right way are hired to do this road work and are paid $1.75 per day regardless as to whether they can do it or not. And it is so near election that. they do not care to learn how to uO the business. If there was NOt so much politics in our small towns and more real road work our roads would be better and our schools would be better and each town would be something that the 1 residents would feel proud of. There fore the time will come when there will be more practical men to look after road work. Roads are built on paper; neither are they built with politics and the sooner the various towns wake up to the fact that some of the officials who are now holding good positions are not capable of dO- ing good road work then is the time l that the young, practical men will take their places. It has become so in many towns that the people think that some of these old officials should i be elected as an honor. After a man has held an office for certain num- Der of years his own judgment should i lead him to believe that he should step down and out and if many of them would dc this the conditions of many of our towns would be greatly mproved.-[ Taxpayer.