Mr. M' Adam's Improved System of Hood-Making. [ March I 



12 'J 



tage or being made and kcj)! at an ex- 

 pense infmitely much less than the 

 hitherto cbeajiest roads of tlie worst 

 materials. 



As a public consideration, the adop- 

 tion of such a system is a matter of 

 obvious ueeessrty ; but the detailed ad- 

 vantages, on the score of mere profit 

 and loss to the commissioners, great 

 as they are, sink into nothing before 

 the means wliich it presents of instant 

 and prolitable employment to fifty 

 thousand families, whose existence is 

 at present a fatally oppressive load on 

 the community ; but whose labours, 

 thus employed, would have an instant 

 and apparently magical effect upon the 

 drained resources of the country. 



Groaning as the kingdom is imder 

 the debt incurred for ends always de- 

 precated by the enlightened and 

 honest, and for which the vilest parti- 

 zans have no longer a plea to offer, 

 it is our still further misfortune to en- 

 dure a heavy and increasing burthen 

 created by the ignorant ; and, in many 

 instances, the wilful misapplication of 

 a revenue raised for an end at once 

 important and beneficial. The amount 

 of tolls collected on the roads of Eng- 

 land and Wales, in a year, is full 

 twelve hundred and fifty thousand 

 pounds ; and, upon those roads, the 

 average amount of debt is about four 

 hundred pounds per mile! The dis- 

 trict upon which the system of Mr. 

 M'Adam was first brought into opera- 

 tion, namely, Bristol, had, in the seven 

 years previous, contracted a debt of 

 twenty thousand pounds ; this, added 

 to an old debt of rather greater 

 amount, tiie whole incurred within 

 twenty years, presented a total against 

 the roads of forty three thousand seven 

 hundred and sixty pounds, together 

 with a floating debt of about fifteen 

 hundred. At the end of one year, and 

 that highly unpropitious in point of 

 weather, (1816,) Mr. M'Adam had 

 newly formed upwards of one hundred 

 miles of road, besides widening and 

 other essential alterations, had paid 

 every expense, together witlr the inter- 

 est on the enormous debt, had paid off 

 the floating incumbrance of fiftceu hun- 

 dred pounds, had diminished the prin- 

 cipal debt about eight hundred pounds, 

 besides vesting three hundred and fifty 

 in fund for improvements. On the 

 one part, we « itnessed roads under in- 

 dictment, and an average loss of near 

 three thousand per annum ; on the 

 other, roads, the admiration of every 



one, and a saving of near three thou- 

 sand per annum ! 



Having, I trust, shown solficient 

 cause for my present intrusion of the 

 system in the above detail of some of 

 its advantages to the public, I will 

 briefly point some of the local benefits 

 arising from its adoption. One of the 

 peculiar features of Mr. M'Adam *s 

 plan, is the preference of human labour 

 to that of horses. Under the system 

 which has brought such wide-spread- 

 ing rain upon the roads, the proportion 

 of horse to human labour was as three 

 out of four. Mr. M'Adam has invari- 

 ably reversed the position ; and, I need 

 not expatiate on the immense oecono- 

 mical advantage of such a change in 

 the articles of general consumption, 

 and still less on the appropriation of 

 such means to the support of our fel- 

 low-creatures in want, in preference 

 to the use of that expensive and extra • 

 vagant agent, the horse. 



In Mr. M' Adam's system, the efforts 

 of mere children are capable of being 

 rendered a source of profit to parents, 

 to whom the first blessing of nature is 

 at present in too many instances a 

 curse. The feebleness of age, and the 

 scarcely greater strength of females, 

 are made applicable to this judicious 

 mode ; and the reply of Col. Browne, 

 a commissioner in the Cheshuut trust, 

 may be accepted as a general answer 

 to objections : " Mr. M'Adam readily 

 employed all the poor we sent, and 

 there is not in the whole parish a sin- 

 gle man unemployed." 



On the Epsom road, the parishes ex- 

 perienced the same relief, besides a 

 reduction in tolls of from two shillings 

 and eight-pence to one shilling. I 

 will now give you Mr. M' Adam's ideas 

 of what a road should be, and then Ids 

 means of making it what he describes; 

 and never, certainly, did the result 

 more amply justify themeans. 



A road I consider as an artificial floor- 

 ing, forming a strong, smooth, solid sur- 

 face, at once capable of carrying great 

 weight, and over which carriages may pass 

 without impediment. 



In the neighbourhood of London the 

 roads are formed of gravel ; in Essex and 

 Sussex they are formed of flint; in Wilts, 

 Somerset, and Gloucester, limestone is 

 principally used ; in the north of England, 

 and in Scotland, whinstone is the principal 

 material; and in Shropshire and Slatford- 

 sbire, large pebbles mixed with sand. 



Excellent roads may be made with any 

 of these materials. 



The gravel of which the roads round 

 London 



