1825.] 
Croker of the Admiralty, in whose pos- 
session they are at present. 
Whether this new discovery will turn 
out to be any thing else than mere 
gossip, time, and ‘the good-will of Mr. 
Croker, must disclose. i Aye el 
Pinlico, Aug. 10, 1825. 
' . & ~ 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Siris0 
ween correspondent N. Y. (Aug. 
No. p. 35,) tells us that “ Mr. 
Macadama is old,’ It. may be so—for I 
know no more of him than I do of 
N.Y., or any other of the alphabet-men, 
&c. who have assailed him, either 
through your pages, or those of other 
periodicals and diurnals, But, would it 
be amiss if N.Y. would recollect, that 
the prejudices—aye, and the interests 
too—with ‘which Mr. Macadam has to 
contend, are older still; and would, per- 
haps, be found quite as “incorrigible,” 
if left to:their own volition, as he? 
N. Y., I suppose, from. the flippant 
personality of this association of age 
and obstinacy, is yet young—if I should 
say, too young to have learned good 
manners, I should stand, I think, excused 
for the retort: for, in the name of com- 
mon sense and decorum, what: has the 
age of Mr. Macadam ‘te do with the 
controversy —unless, indeed, it were 
advanced in favour of the probability of 
some experience? That such expe- 
rience may be liable to some bias, is 
true—for he has an interest in the ex- 
tended adoption. of his system, But, 
have none of his opponents an interest 
also in the old opponent systems? I 
will not appeal to you, Sir—it would 
be indecorous—but I appeal to your 
readers, whether the! language of some 
of your correspondents on this subject 
does not occasionally betray a warmth 
and inveteracy, that, without any great 
violation of candour, might be attributed 
to personal motives?—to feelings of 
personal. interest?) Might the “ dis- 
placed” contractor or overseer, whose 
cause your correspondent N.Y. so 
warmly, though so covertly, advocates— 
and whose comprehensive axiom he so 
eulogistically quotes—if, indeed, N. Y. 
be not that “displaced” himself !— 
might not he be suspected of quite as 
personal and interested a feeling against, 
_ as Mr. Macadam has for, the newly- 
adopted steining system?—and may not: 
he bevas:  old,’-and as “incorrigible,” 
in his prejudices-or his calculations, as 
the displacer himself?! : 
‘Macadamization. 
119 
But what has the public to do with 
the age or the youth, or with the mo- 
tives or the prejudices of cither? The 
question is—and it has become a qués- 
tion of mere practical experiment— 
“Does Mr, Macadam’s plan (where 
tried) appear to answer?” The piece 
of the Hammersmith road answers 
well; St. James’s-square answers well ; 
Regent-street (with the double-worked 
crossing of Piccadilly, at the Regent 
Circus) answers well; — Westminstér 
Bridge answers well! In every one of 
these instances of town experiment, 
every one of the hostile prognostications 
has been falsified. None of the fore- 
boded inconveniences have arisen.— 
Blackfriars Bridge is the only point on 
which objection still keeps its ground 
in the face of experiment: and even 
here, if the plan should, ultimately, not 
succeed, it would not, perhaps, be diffi- 
cult to shew, that the failure is attribu- 
table more to local circumstances, per- 
taining exclusively to the bridge itself, 
than to the Macadamizing system.— So 
much for street, or London town expe- 
rience. 
That some modifications of the sys- 
tem may be required in particular in- 
stances, where roads are to be formed. 
upon different bottoms, or subsoils, is 
very probable; but I'suspect that N.Y.’s 
will not be found the true panacea; 
and my philosophy leads me more than 
to suspect the probability of “clayey 
matter” being “ produced by the attri- 
tion of stones,” whether they be of flint, 
of gravel, or of granite. In short, all I 
should apprehend, even upon N. Y.’s 
own shewing, is, that where the bottom 
or subsoil is soft or clayey, it may re- 
quire repeated layers, at longer or 
shorter intervals, before the road will 
be complete; and that roads of little 
traffic will be longer consolidating than 
those that are abundantly rolled down 
by carriages, carts and broad-wheeled 
waggons;—that, in the former case, 
during the two or three first years, the 
road will require almost half the expense 
and attention to keep it in repair that 
the other roads require, and cause 
almost a tenth part of the annoyance 
of the old system to the traffic passing 
over it. In compensation, however, for 
these grievous disadvantages, I am dis- 
posed to anticipate, that the same time 
and traffic which would cut up the roads 
of the family of the “ Dispossesseds,” 
will consolidate and bring to perfection 
those of the Macadams—which, with a 
constantly-diminishing portion of atten- 
tion, 
