1912] on The Road: Past, Present and Future. :i33 



"The road between this place and London is grown so infamously 

 bad that we live here in the same solitude as we would do if cast upon 

 a rock in the middle of the ocean ; and all Londoners tell us there is 

 between them and us an impassable gulf of mud." At the best of 

 times, if there were no breakdown, a drive from Kensington to St. 

 James's Palace occupied two hours. 



How many of you, ladies and gentlemen, have rolled in luxury 

 through Kensington to this Institution to-night ? Yet such was the 

 state of things in the time of the Georges. It will not surprise you 

 to hear that al)Out the same period fourteen days was considered a 

 good run from London to Edinburgh, and that Sir Henry Herbert 

 said solemnly in the House of Commons, " if a man were to propose 

 to convey us regularly to Edinburgh in coaches in seven days, should 

 we not vote him to Bedlam ? " 



So dreadful was the state of things in the eighteenth century 

 that in the first seventy years 580 Acts of Parliament were passed, 

 ordering Statute labour, authorizing turnpikes, etc., etc., but so in- 

 different were the public, and so inefficient was the work, that no real 

 improvement was made. That the road should be rutted by the 

 trafiic till the vehicles sank to the axles was looked upon as inevitable, 

 and no other remedy was thought of than to bring up the level 

 by pouring in large stones. Thus, as Young sums it up, " we 

 were either buried in quagmires of mud, or rocked to dislocation 

 over pieces of rock, which they called mending." It is interesting to 

 notice that from the time of the Romans down to the middle of the 

 18th century there is no record of any good road l)eing made, till 

 General AVade — again for military purposes — constructed a road 

 through the Scottish Highlands which, when order was restored after 

 the " '45," proved of great service to the country. An obelisk erected 

 on the road bore this inscription, which contains as good a bull as 

 ever was produced in Ireland : 



" Had you seou this road before it was made, 



You would hold up both hands aud bless General Wade." 



The Present, 



A great improvement took place when Macadam and Telfer 

 brought the results of their study and their inventive powers to bear, 

 giving a road well laid below and a crust of small angular stones, 

 which when pressed down close produced an infinitely better road 

 than had been known before. But it must be admitted that while 

 they provided ])etter materials for a good highway their mode of com- 

 pleting it entailed upon the road user and his horse and vehicle a 

 great deal of unpleasant road-making work, involving much temporary 



