11»12] on The Road: PasI, Prexoil (tad Future. 829 



upon the scene ; but, as I have said, things fell back again sadly when 

 the railroad carried off nine-tenths of the traffic. Thus, "like master, 

 like man " — as it was with the surveyor, so it was with the road man. 

 Too often he was an old labourer bending under rheumatism, who 

 was no longer fit for his ordinary employment, and, the choice being 

 between ]mtting him on the rates as a pauper, and giving him wages 

 to do road work for which he had no training, and which he was 

 unable from senile decay to do efficiently, he was put on and kept on 

 the road as a make-believe roadman, to do work which calls for 

 intelligence and full virility. How often did one see him in the 

 fifties of last century, and for many years later, laboriously and slowly 

 scraping oif the mud which the traffic had squeezed out of the road in 

 wet weather ! In dry weather it was the turn of the stones whose 

 binding had l)een loosened, and they lay on the surface to cause 

 horses to stumble, or to lame them by wedging between the frog and 

 the shoe. These loose stones the decrepit roadman should have 

 raked off, a duty which I can vouch from what I saw and suffered in 

 my youth was but intermittently performed, and often not performed 

 at all. 



What a change has come over the scene since the new century 

 was entered upon ! The road is how one of the ruling elements, not 

 only in local but in Imperial politics. For once more the traffic of 

 the country, whether for pleasure, for business, or for commerce, is 

 being largely conducted by road, and it is manifest that in the future 

 it will be so in an ever-increasing degree. Millions of miles are now 

 run every month by road-vehicles where, twenty years ago, the 

 mileage run was but a small fraction of what it is now. The rapidity 

 with which this revolution in road transit has taken place has been 

 a great surprise to all — even to those who welcomed it. It has 

 excited varying emotions in the community. Some rejoice : others — 

 a gradually diminishing number — utter anathemas in no gentle tone. 

 But all are in agreement on one thing : that the change by which 

 the road has once more become a principal and not a mere local 

 provision for transit of passengers and goods is a change for all 

 time. The most bitter opponent of the modern power vehicle has 

 to confess that the situation must be accepted. It required a course 

 of years to remove the scales from some eyes. About four or five 

 years ago, a very worthy friend of mine delivered himself to me in 

 solemn tones, thus : " In another ten years there will not be half the 

 motor-cars on the roads that there are now." I grieve to say he did 

 not live to finally test his own prediction, but during the four years 

 that passed he never referred to the subject again, as he lived to see 

 the numbers increasing by tens, or even twenties, of thousands 

 annually, and found himself unable to resist his own family, when 

 they desired to use motor-cars. To be consistent, he would not buy, 

 but he hired. This affords a curious instance of how history repeats 

 itself. Exactly the same kind of remark was made shortly after the 



