ROADS. 321 



After all, pavement is the best surface for a loaded 

 coach to run upon, as far as draught is concerned. Here 

 she is always alive, and the vis vivida is a great help to 

 her. 1 Some years since I used to drive the Chester mail 

 a good deal over those paved roads out of Chester, and 

 always considered that the unicorn team was quite equal 

 to the draught. Paved roads, however, are dangerous 

 for fast work : — witness the number of axletrees of 

 coaches that are broken every year in Piccadilly, and 

 •that sink-hole of a town, Brentford. It would be a great 

 benefit to the public if all this pavement were broken up, 

 and the M'Adam system adopted in its place. I could now 

 name a dozen coach axletrees that have been snapped 

 in two in this short distance, within the last eighteen 

 months ; but the most extraordinary case was that of the 

 celebrated Cheltenham ' Magnet' Her axletree gave 

 way in Hammersmith, and the coachman went back to 

 his yard in the City for another coach. The axletree of 

 that coach was broken in the town of Brentford, on the 

 same day, and with the same passengers. 



Mr. M 'Adam's system is about to be put to a proper test 

 in that great thoroughfare. Oxford Street, London. The 

 system, however, is to be improved upon, by having a good 

 coat of broken stone put on the top of new pavement. I 

 have always doubted the abolition of pavement in London 

 streets. In Eastern nations, where neither frost nor 

 snow prevails, almost any materials stand good in their 



1 So long as the pavement is not of asphalte, where horses cannot keep 

 on their legs, and on getting down cannot get up again, Nimrod's statement 

 still holds good. — Ed. 



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