KESEAECH COMMITTEES. 545 



also labour and risk in descending. For all grades steeper 

 than 1 in 50, it is true, from cycling experience, that every foot 

 of rise is a greater impediment than 30ft. extra horizontal 

 distance. 



5. In good residential suburbs, where houses stand de- 

 tached, the chess-board should be absolutely abandoned, and 

 picturesque irregularity encouraged. If the country is hilly 

 the roads should approximate to the contour-lines, and streets 

 running straight up the steepest slope of the hill be absolutely 

 forbidden. In this way convenience and appearance would 

 both be secured. 



6. Both in town and suburbs care should be taken to see 

 that every street and lane can be properly drained without the 

 water passing over private property. Blind lanes should have 

 the blind end iiighest, and through lanes should slope from one 

 end to the other or from a central summit down to each end. 

 Any arrangement that does not admit of this must be altered 

 until it does. Examples of the neglect of this reasonable pre- 

 caution abound in Melbourne, and great have been the trouble 

 and expense of drainage in consequence. 



7. As to width of streets, extremes should be avoided. The 

 3-chain streets and the -i-chain streets in Melbourne are both 

 objectionable. A central 2-chaiu street, as at Adelaide, is good, 

 and all the others should be, according to probable importance, 

 1 or 1^ chains. Lanes for simply giving access to back yards, 

 and having no through traffic whatever, should be not less than 

 22fb. At convenient but inconspicuous jDoints in the lanes of 

 city blocks sufficient areas should be reserved for public closets 

 and urinals, the want of which is much felt in Melbourne. 



8. Public parks, cricket-grounds, bowling and tennis lawns, 

 should be liberally provided. Land too low for buildmg pur- 

 poses can often be so utilised. Eugged and steep hills often 

 make very picturesque parks, and afford good sites for public 

 monuments. The area of land so set apart for recreation pur- 

 poses should be at least one-third of the whole area, and should 

 be so arranged that no point is more than half a mile from some 

 such public reserve. 



9. The main radiating roads from the centre to the out- 

 skirts should be most carefully laid out by a properly trained 

 and experienced road-engineer, who would attend to the ques- 

 tion of grades, and choose proper bridge-sites at the crossing 

 of all the larger streams. The general arrangement of the 

 central city and the separate suburbs should be devised by an 

 experienced architect, in consultation with an equally expe- 

 rienced municipal surveyor ; and the services of a good land- 

 scape gardener would be very desirable in connection with parks 

 and gardens, for, though many years would probably elapse 

 before these could be brought to perfection, it would be a good 



35 



