SLOW PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT 285 



where much remained to be done. For the slow progress made there 

 were many reasons. Country gentlemen used the same arguments 

 against new roads which were afterwards employed against railways. 

 " Merry England " would be merry no longer if her highways ceased 

 to be miry. They dreaded the disturbance of their game, feared the 

 intrusion of town manners, resented the sacrifice of their interests 

 to those of wealthy traders. As magistrates they were reluctant 

 to enforce the law of road-repair against their own tenants. Statute 

 labour was deservedly unpopular. Surveyors, forced into office 

 against their will, only called upon their neighbours to fulfil their 

 liabilities as a last resource, and at seasons when agricultural work 

 was slack. Urban and rural interests were opposed. Market 

 towns might demand metalled roads for the transport of their 

 merchandise ; but self-sufficing villages were content with the drift- 

 ways which were sufficient to enable them to house their crops, and 

 to drag their flour from the mill through the same ruts which their 

 ancestors had worn. Even when a parish was active in road-repair, 

 its energies were generally misdirected. Roads were unguarded at 

 the sides. Drainage was often provided by cutting open grips across 

 their surface. If any convexity was attempted, it was so exaggerated 

 as to be dangerous ; the sides sloped like the roof of a house. Hence 

 the whole traffic fell on the centre, which soon wore into ruts. Many 

 roads were undrainable, because the continual scraping of mud from 

 the surface had sunk them below the level of the adjoining land. 

 Hence they were always wet, and, from the rapid decay of material, 

 expensive to maintain. Where a parish was apathetic, the least 

 possible mending was done in the worst possible way. A faggot, or a 

 bundle of broom or heather, powdered with gravel, served to stop 

 a bad hole ; if beyond repair by such means, mud, scraped from the 

 sides of the roads and ditches, was thrown on the centre of the road, 

 and into this bed was shot a cartload of large unbroken stones. Not 

 infrequently the road material, raised and carted at the parish 

 expense, missed its destination, and made good, not the road, but 

 the gateways or the yard of some neighbouring farmer. 



The system of road maintenance was proving inadequate for 

 modern requirements. Responsibility ceased at the parish boun- 

 daries, and no uniformity was possible. The statute labour was 

 everywhere enforced with difficulty. It was also exhausted at one 

 particular season, and nothing more was done till the period recurred. 

 It was a system of occasional outlay without continuous repair. 



