'5 



changed character of the road, we passed on to Newton- 

 ville over our fine old avenue. The first road required 

 scarcely any mending. The last one was cut up with 

 ruts, and full of mud, and workmen were dumping gravel 

 from four to six inches deep on it. On the Waltham road 

 it required one fortieth the weight of the load (say twenty 

 pounds) in tractive force to draw it, while on the main 

 road of Newton it would have required one eighth of the 

 load (100 lbs.) in tractive force to draw it. That this 

 criticism is not especially in the interest of persons driv- 

 ing in light carriages and for pleasure, may be seen from 

 the fact — as demonstrated by careful and extended experi- 

 ment — that the resistance to the onward motion of the 

 carriage, arising from roughness of the road, is always in 

 proportion to the weight of the carriage. A double weight 

 will offer double resistance, a triple weight triple resist- 

 ance, and so on." Now when, in the face of facts like 

 these, some good citizen implies that the explanation of 

 the intolerable state of some of our roads, for some weeks 

 of the year, is in so-called "natural causes," we demur. 



We somehow strongly suspect that human inefficiency 

 in the matter has something to answer for, and with only 

 a change of the proper name would reply, in the words 

 of Cassius, 



'• The fault, dear Brutus, is not iu our stars, 

 But iu ourselves." 



We ought not to be satisfied with the condition of any 

 main road, on which any day of the year when it is free 

 from snow drifts, a horse may not travel at very near his 

 ordinary speed. So obvious and manifold are the bene- 

 fits which good roads bring to a community that from 

 very early times men have regarded those associated "with 

 their projection with the highest honor and gratitude. 



