The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-08-19
S1OO,OOO DAMAGE ID COUNTY ROADS BY RECENT RAINS Many Crews at Work and Repairs Being Made
 Rapidly GOOD WORK DONE BY
 COUNTY CONNECTS Concrete Bridges Demonstrate Ad- vantage of Permanent Construc- tion-Grades and Curves Are
 Being Reduced

With over 20 crews at work, County Engineer George H. Clark believes that he will soon have the public roads of the county in fairly good shape.
 Yesterday afternoon Engineer Clark, in company with an assistant and a representative of The Age-Herald, made an inspection tour of the work being done on the roads leading to Shades mountain
 Throughout the trip much evidence was noticed of the recent disastrous rains, as most of the roads were washed clean to the solid rock foun- dation. At other places it was pointed out where the creeks had overflowed and washed away the bridges.
 Some of our wooden bridges were washed away so far, said Mr Clark. "that we had to advertise to get them back again. However, none of our concrete bridges were washed away, so that the heavy storms in a way were blessing in that they empha- sized the importance of permanent construction of county bridges
 "The damage to the roads of the county by the recent rains will amount to over s1Oo,00O; that is, it will take something above that sum and about years work to get the roads of the county in the shape they were in only two short months ago.
 FARMERS SUFFER
 The farmers suffered as well as the county Their crops were practically ruined. There can be no second crop at this time of the year, so, in my opinion, the country people are facing a hard fall and winter"
 Engineer Clark pointed out the methods of roadmaking. how every ef- fort was made to reduce grades, to avoid making sharp curves and to i'm prove the country generally wherever county roads were built.
 of course we are repairing the damage to the roads made by the heavy rains and floods with all the haste that is possible under the circum- stances, but that does not prevent us from doing some construction work in the building of new bridges and the reduction of grades. We have several gangs of men on grade work at the present time and several bridges are under construction"
 The majority of the workmen under Engineer Clark are negro convicts. About 300 convicts are now working on the roads, according to MT. Clark and about 100 other free employees make up the road workers of the county.
 We have about 400 men working the roads and the county bridges at the present time" said MT. Clark, "and we will put on more men in the fall"
 It was picturesque scene watching the convicts working on the roads of Shades mountain yesterday afternoon. It was hot. However, the convicts did not seem to pay much attention to the heat. The broke rocks, dug up the earth, carried heavy pieces of tim- Der from place to place and generally made themselves very useful under the droWSy- vigilance of the guards, who held Winchester rifles in the loop of their arms and kept reasonable distance way from the dark, sweaty convicts, who, despite their harmless appearance, were sometimes known to rear" at discipline.
 CONNECTS WELL FED
 Foreman Trawick of the Shades mountain road crew explained that the convicts were very well fed and we'll behaved at the present time He said:
 we feed them much better on the road than they would get at the coun- ty jail. We also feed them much bet ter than the state convicts. We don't serve out anything in portions to the convicts We place the food on the table and they eat what they want If negro wants another piece of meat. it is there for him. The result of this policy is that we get more work out of them and better discipline We only had tc punish two convicts last month. which is as good record as any road gang in the county.
 You can always tell when a negro Is well treated. If his face is all shiny and he sweats all over, that nigger is we'll fed. But those dry skinned ne- groes aren't much good. They havent t had good food and they can't work, You've simply got to feed them-if you want tow ork 'em.'