Year: 1878

Morris and Bethlehem have finally reached out of the highway desired, by Messrs. Hnrl- but Fessenden and Cogswell, a committee of the Superior Court The whole expense for constructing the road and land damages will be about $1000.

 The object of this road is to improve Bethle- hems route to the Morris Station of the She paug railroad The former town had already improved the road within their own limits and then sued the town of Morris for a continuation of their road for distance of about three quarters of mile, Commencing at the bounda- " lines between the two towns and terminat- ing near the house of H. J. Waugh. The new road saves d quarter of a mile in distance and rise of about an hundred feet.

 The case was on trial for about a week, al- together, and was ably managed by Mr. Graves, for the petition, and Mir. Andrews in opposi- ton to it. We were forcibly struck in this case, as we have often been in similar sectional contests, by the wonderful discrepancy in the estimates of the opposing witnesses. Some swore that there is large amount of travel over the present road-others that there is | scarcely any some, that it has a we'll worked and well beaten track-others that it is nearly overgrown with grass and shows scarcely any | marks of travel some, that certain land on the new route was the best pasture in Morris others, that it was not worth dollar an acre. How happens it that road case calls out all the spirit of contradiction there is in humanity so strongly?

 An enthusiastic friend of Progress, writing from Morris, ,deprecates the spirit of opposition he finds there, and refers as follows to the ex- perience of the adjoining town of Washington; 1 Mir. EDlToR-Although believe you are a 1 taxpayer in the town of Washington, l take that as sample town in improvements of common roads. For the last twenty years you sir, have had in that town heavy expendi- lures to contend with; but l think they are duly appreciated by generous public, and l have heard it remarked by some of those 1 among the most active opponents of those i'm l provenents that it was not bad investment | for the town after all, that the influx of pop ulation and capital had nearly or quite com pensated for the outlay. There are still slight | improvements that might be made in that town at trifling cost, that would greatly &C., commodate the travelir .ipublic Forinstance, a short piece of road should be built up the She paug between Smoky Hollow and Davis Hol- low. The public have iapg felt the need of these improvements which with otheE slight additions in the town of Morris, would be of great public advantage Nor do I forget the improvement around Bantam lake which nsllst eventually come. We live in an age of inn provement. There is no use in letting the wheels roll backward. Labor Unwilling hands is now cheap, and plenty of capital now lies idle Can we do better than give these willing hands employment that all posterlty may bless us!

 The funeral of Engineer Hatch at Winsted, Sunday, was magnificent affair. Trains ran on all the railroads into Winsted. Twelve hun dred people were crowded into the Second Con- gregational church with another crowd at the

 Methodist. The pall-bearers were railroad superintendents, engineers and conductors.

 Four hundred. Masons and several hundred

 railroad men were present, and eight ear loads

 of passenger followed the remains to Burryille