1825.} 
ing some at the board of which I am a 
member, who were for plunging into 
the fashion of the day, and trying the 
Macadamization of some of our streets, 
at once. I certainly opposed any thing 
like an early adoption of it; my motto 
was at least a safe one—“ Wait ;” and 
after having done so for one year, I still 
say, “ Wait;” for the thing, as to its 
succeeding in London, is by no means 
proved. About the time I mention, S. 
W.’s letter appeared in the Monthly, 
and being an occasional correspondent 
of that work, I ventured to throw toge- 
ther my loose ideas on the subject, and 
really, nothing has happened since to 
shake them materially. Still it is very 
far from my desire to exclude improve- 
ment, especially where it is said it can 
be had cheaper. I am therefore still 
waiting for conviction, while the roads 
are left for execution. 
I was more than a little pleased to 
see, in a note, and in the postscript to 
Mr. Farey’s valuable letter in your last 
number, a remark or two that bear upon 
the point in question; and, in my esti- 
mation, coming from a mind so capa- 
ble of well appreciating this matter, 
these are worth more than all the cla- 
mour that there has been, or may be, 
about it; and, inasmuch as they uphold 
opinions which I have formed, and pub- 
licly expressed, are gratifying. It is 
also ‘singular, that Mr. Castleden, who 
is angry with ‘me for what I have said, 
has given us an eulogium on Mr. Farey, 
with every word of which I most cor- 
dially agree, though, unfortunately, that 
individual seems decidedly opposed to 
him in his views of Mr. Macadam, and 
his. said-to-be new invention. 
In my first letter I said, “The break- 
ing of stones to form roads is no new 
thing:” in this, Mr. Farey completely 
bears me out, by his forcible remark in: 
the note abovementioned; where he 
says, that it has been a practice “of 
thirty or forty years’ standing, and pur- 
sued as long by scores of roadmakers, 
from whom this good practice has been 
borrowed; yet the public mistakenly 
lavishes its praises and emoluments on 
an individual, as being its inventor.” 
So much for its novelty; and now for 
Mr. Farey’s other idea, that of the ille- 
gality of breaking up the pavements to 
make roads: I agree with him in think- 
ng it illegal, and not at all within Mr, 
ichael Angelo Taylor’s act, nor any 
local act that I am acquainted with; 
yet, in saying this, Mr. Farey must not 
consider it as coming from a /egal man, 
Objections to Macadamizing. 
107 
but from one who considers plain com- 
mon sense to be as able to understand 
such a matter as most lawyers. M.A. 
Taylor’s act is a terribly voluminous 
one, but there is nothing in it, which I 
am aware of, capable of being construed 
into an empowering of commissioners 
to turn streets into roads; the commis- 
sioners are empowered to pave and re- 
pair; and the only words that could in 
any way be strained at all towards such 
a meaning, are “ other materials ;” but 
which are used thus, when the pave- 
ments, &c. &c. are vested in the re- 
spective commissioners of parishes :— 
“ And also, that all and every the pave- 
ments, stones, posts, and other materials, 
which now are, or which may be here- 
after, placed in the foot or carriage- 
ways, &c.;” and the same words are 
afterwards used repeatedly, but always 
in the same general way. How far 
commissioners may be subject to indict- 
ments or criminal informations for their 
acts, I must leave to some one better 
learned in the law to decide; but I think 
it will be found that they are personally 
irresponsible, and that the parish, as a 
body, would have to defend them: but 
I do think, what Mr. Farey suggests 
about an appeal against the paving-rate, 
if so misapplied, would be very likely to 
succeed,—at least under the general act ; 
for it is not unlikely, that in some of 
the local acts it may be different; and 
they are all expressly excepted in M.A. 
Taylor’s act; and in local acts certain 
estates are very frequently excepted,— 
as, for instance, in that for the parish of 
St. Clement Danes, passed the 23d of 
Geo. III.; Clare-market, then the pro- 
perty of the Duke of Newcastle; and 
certain approaches to wharfs, then the 
property of William Kitchener, Esq., 
progenitor of the present celebrated 
Dr. Kitchener, were expressly exempted 
from its operation, and continue to be 
so to this day. 
In trying the few streets they have on 
the new plan, the corporation of the 
City of London have acted wisely, and 
it is tobe hoped they will give the thing 
a fair trial; but one thing should not 
be forgotten by the managers of other 
laces, which is, that the commissioners 
or whatever they are called) in the city, 
have the whole of its paving funds at 
their disposal, and are not, as is the 
case in Westminster, confined to paro- 
chial districts ; consequently, if it even- 
tually should not succeed, the burthen 
will be light, in comparison of what it 
would be in a single parish. It is-to be 
Pp 2 hoped 
