354 



Turnpike and Parish Roads. 



payers, or a single magistrate if a parish road, could, with very 

 little personal trouble or inconvenience, render imposition to any 

 extent next to impossible ; and if the system is carried out as it 

 ought to be, the farmers would have the benefit of being able to 

 send their corn to market upon good roads instead of bad ones ; 

 and where they at present use four horses for that purpose three 

 would do, and one remain at home for other jobs, always wanting 

 on a farm. 



A few lines will explain generally the plan, of which the de- 

 tails will be found as we proceed. It is to put a certain portion 

 or district of road under the sole care of one man, from which he 

 is never removed so long as he conducts himself properly, and 

 that the materials, instead of being carted and laid on the road at 

 the time of repairing, should be contracted for so as to be brought 

 and laid on the sides of the road and trimmed up in one uniform 

 way ready to be measured up some months before they are 

 wanted for use. 



Before entering into the details of this system, which we call 

 the mile system," I may mention that upwards of five-and- 

 twenty years ago I first endeavoured to introduce a system similar 

 to the one now in use upon the Great Western road, near Vir- 

 ginia Water, and at that period it was so far partially adopted 

 that a mile-house was erected upon what then was a wild part of 

 Bagshot Heath, for the purpose of having a resident mile-man; 

 but at that time the art of road-making was imperfectly under- 

 stood in the South of England, and as the traffic increased the 

 roads continued getting worse every year, until it was agreed 

 by the trustees to call in the assistance of Sir James M'Adam, 

 under whose direction the roads were certainly improved up 

 to the year 1830, but were still very far from being so good 

 as they now are under the improved system which was called 

 into operation on my return from a long residence on the 

 continent in 1830, when I obtained the consent of my brother- 

 trustees to make an experiment of the present system over a 

 portion of the road ; and with the aid of a sub- committee we set 

 to work in earnest to establish the present mile system, and it 

 was found to work so well that the two trusts from the Powder- 

 Mill Bridge on Hounslow Heath to the Golden Farmer Hill, 

 west of the town of Bagshot, were put upon the same footing ; and 

 I am here in honour bound to remark that Sir James M'Adam, 

 as general surveyor, though not absolutely opposed to the system 

 in the beginning, did not anticipate that it would work as well as it 

 has done ; he has, however, been ever ready to give me any assist- 

 ance that from his experience and scientific acquirement he is so 

 well able to do ; and upon better acquaintance with the details, he 

 has so far approved of them that he has established the same 



