14 



with them in the world to come. And yet this piece of 

 road is so situated that an underdrain throughout its 

 entire length could find a favorably inclined outlet at 

 either end. The difficulty concerning such an abomina- 

 ble state of things as we endure in cases like this, seems 

 to be that we have no proper standard of what a road 

 should be. Whenever a traveller complains, he is reminded 

 by some one that it is the spring of the year, that the frost 

 is coming out, that there is a good deal of clay in the road, 

 that the weather is unfavorable for roads, and other sim- 

 ilar explanations are given. But rarely is it implied that 

 man could do more than has been done to abate the annual 

 blockade. 



As one antidote to such supineness, we would recom- 

 mend the reading of the report of the committee of the 

 town of Newton made to a town meeting some years ago. 

 The committee had been raised to bring in a report upon 

 the appointment of an engineer, and it reported favorably. 

 Some years previous, the town of Waltham had made lib- 

 eral expenditures upon its roads, macadamizing its princi- 

 pal streets, and had adopted a system of constant repairs. 

 In making a comparison between the roads of the two 

 towns, the committee say that the year before it had cost 

 the town of Waltham, for repairs and cleaning off snow, 

 not over $80 a mile, while the town of Newton had 

 expended for the same purpose $176 a mile. " It will be 

 seen," say the committee, " that our system of partial or 

 incomplete repairs is twice as expensive." The report 

 further says : " Your committee visited Waltham and 

 found the broken stone road dry and hard. It will sus- 

 tains loads of six tons without being cut into ruts. 

 Returning, we came through Waltham street, and, observ- 

 ing the instant we passed from town to town in the 



