ASSOCIATION OF FAIR MANAGERS. 203 



add to this sum the cost of those of the townships. The followiu.i;-, how- 

 ever, may convey some notion of the result: In the year 1892 fifty counties 

 in the State of New Yorlv paid out for road improvement $2,710,000, ex- 

 clusive of the sums expended in cities, towns and villages. But I must 

 hasten to the conclusion of the matter. 



England now uses the combined Macadam and Telford systems with 

 good results. Telford's system begins with an excavation of ten Inches, 

 in which stones are laid with their joints broken; the work is open and 

 the interstices are filled with small broken stone tightly compacted; the 

 superstructure is the same as macadam. In macadam we haA'e succes- 

 sive layers of stones broken to the size of 2^ to 2i inches laid in successive 

 layers and compacted by means of a heavy roller, the small fragments or 

 splinters being used to fill with. Roads so made should have a grade 

 whose incline is not above 4 or 5 per cent. All soil sliould be carefully 

 removed as fast as it accumulates, ruts tilled and firmly tamped at once, 

 and the surface now and then sprinkled and rolled. In regulating the 

 weight that might be hauled over these, one-inch breadth of tire should 

 be required for every 400 pounds. 



As to the sources from which labor may be drawn, the State and 

 counties have several which may be drawn upon, when legislative enact- 

 ment lends the requisite authority. There are a little more than l.(5( 

 convicts in the State's prisons Avhose labor ought not to be allowed to 

 compete with free labor. The jail records of 1901 show 23,987 commit- 

 ments; if we subtract 50 per cent, for repeated offenses by the same of- 

 fender and for those sent to the State prison, etc.. we get a large number 

 from which to draw. In 1901 there were 4,338 inmates in the county asy- 

 lums; if we deduct 70 per cent, for females and infirm persons, a contin- 

 gent is yet left considerable in size; now add to these tramps, vagrants 

 and all persons able-bodied who show no visible means of subsistence, and 

 we have quite an army. The moral effects of such employment would 

 also be considerable; able-bodied tramps and vagrants would speedily find 

 it to their interest to labor for themselves, and the State would find how 

 utterly foolish it is to destroy a human machine capable of so much labor 

 that is needed to make the State yet greater and add to the comforts and 

 conveniences of her citizens. 



Any veteran of the Civil War knows tliat it will prove no great un- 

 dertaking for a comparatively small guard furaished with repeating rifles 

 to maintain order and prevent escapes; the more desperate and criminal 

 might wear red shirts or jackets to pick them out, while the colors denot- 

 ing degree of crime might be shaded down to the comparative innocuous 

 "bum." ^Movable stockades, tents, hospital tents, shanties, etc., would 

 furnish for the protection in their kind. 



I have said that we should now, at this session, begin a movement 

 looking to the I'esults which we desire. Let a committee of this body call 

 upon the Legislature with the request that a resolution be passed ask- 



