road, or even in its ruts, hollows, and inequali- 
ties, the best materials will fail, and will be in- 
capable of withstanding a heavy traffic; while 
very indifferent materials may form a tolerably 
good road, provided proper precautions are used 
for keeping them dry. A road should also be 
kept free from all impediments, such as mounds 
of earth, trees that may be blown down, large 
stones, or deep pits; because every road should 
be kept in such a state that it may be travelled 
over in the darkest night with as much confi- 
dence as in broad day-light. To insure all these ob- 
jects requires a certain degree of care and watch- 
fulness, and frequently a considerable expendi- 
ture of money, and the manner in which these 
objects may be provided for, will be first con- 
sidered. Roads are usually divided into three 
distinct classes, called private roads, public or 
parish roads, and turnpike roads. Public or pa- 
rish roads, and turnpike or high-roads, are, in 
some countries, national or government roads. 
Private roads are such as are constructed by pri- 
vate individuals, upon their own estates or farms. 
In these the soil belongs to the proprietor, and he is 
alone at the expense of constructing and repairing 
the roads. He may therefore fix gates and lock them 
up, or change their direction, or destroy and plough 
them up whenever he pleases, and the public cannot 
complain; nor indeed have they any right to use 
them, except by sufferance. In England, it is neces- 
sary to lock up such roads occasionally, and to deny 
passage through them except by permission, and to 
keep records of such stoppage; because, if a private 
road is left open to the public for sixty years, it be- 
comes public property, and the proprietor cannot 
afterwards close it or even change its direction, espe- 
cially if it leads to a place of public worship. 
Public, or parish roads, run through a larger dis- 
trict of country, and generally make communications 
between one farm and another, or between villages 
and even large towns, so that these roads are much 
more extensively used; but, inasmuch as they are 
seldom in the directions that lead directly through a 
country, they are not so much used by the general 
traveller as by those who live in their immediate 
neighbourhood. Such reads are open to the use of 
the public generally, without any toll or charge; but 
as funds are necessary for keeping them in repair, 
and as they require frequent inspection to see that 
such repairs are performed, they are entrusted to, 
and considered as the property of the parish in which 
they are situated. The parish appoints an officer or 
surveyor, whose duty it is to frequently examine the 
roads; to give directions to such labourers as may be 
necessary for their repair, and to provide and appro- 
priate the necessary materials. The labour, together 
with the necessary transportation of materials by 
carts and horses, is provided by the inhabitants of 
the parish, and in order that it may be evenly and 
fairly distributed among them, an assessment is 
made upon every householder, according to the ex- 
tent of the property he holds in the parish. And as 
this assessment is made by the inhabitants them- 
selves, there is seldom any dispute as to its equity. 
According to the property of the inhabitant, or the 
extent of his use of the road, (if more than ordinary, ) 
he has to furnish a certain number of labourers, 
horses, and carts, for a certain number of days in 
each year; and they are liable to be called out when 
the surveyor has occasion for their services, and the 
entire portion of that labour being completed at any 
ROAD. 
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ce or ne FS 
year. The labour, horse hire, &c., is also estimated 
in money, so that if it is not convenient to afford the 
assistance in kind when required, he may compound 
for it in money, which enables the surveyor to hire 
other assistance. These cash payments hkewise fall 
upon such inhabitants as, notwithstanding their posses- 
sion of property, may not have workmen or teams ; and 
who, consequently, could not contribute at all, unless 
they were allowed to do so in money. When pa- 
rishes become large and the above operation might 
prove intricate and troublesome, the labour finding 
system is wholly abolished, and a general money-rate 
substituted in its place; so that the surveyor has to 
hire all his hands and teams, and to purchase or dig 
his own materials. Thisis, in general, found to be the 
most beneficial mode of proceeding; because the sur- 
veyor can, in this case, pick out and retain good 
hands, who become accustomed to their business, 
and work willingly and cheerfully; and experience 
fully shows that a few good hands who are accus- 
tomed to working on a road will do more good to it 
in a shorter time than a greater number of unwilling 
hands not acquainted with the business. By the for- 
mer plan there must be a succession of strange and 
uninstructed labourers, who may be said to be un- 
willing, because country labourers, in general, do not 
like to be put out of their regular routine of agricul- 
tural business, and especially to go to a work that 
they deem compulsory, and which, in many cases, is 
to produce a greater benefit to their neighbours than 
to themselves. Still, however, by the one or other 
process, parish roads are generally kept in a state of 
very fair condition. 
The next and most important class of roads are 
those which, in Britain, are called the high or turn- 
ptke roads. ‘These are the great travelling roads 
which go from the metropolis, in as straight lines as 
can be obtained, through all the principal towns and 
villages to the extremities of the country; and like- 
wise from one principal town to another. As these 
roads are for the accommodation of the general 
public, it would be unjust that the expense of their 
maintenance and repairs should fall upon the parishes 
through which they pass; and, accordingly, these 
roads are supported solely by tolls, taken from all 
passengers that use them with cattle or carriages, 
and they are called turnpike roads, because they have 
gates called turnpzke gates, and collecting houses 
placed upon them at certain distances, and the tolls 
there collected furnish funds for the preservation and 
repair of the road. 
As these roads are of great national importance, 
they are all established and regulated by acts of the 
legislature. These acts impose penalties upon all 
persons obstructing the roads, and limit the maximum 
amount of tolls to be taken from the public, by which 
imposition is prevented, and the payment of the tolls 
is made peremptory; for the collector has the right 
of retaining a horse or other animal in the event of 
refusal to pay the toll, until it shall be paid. As 
foot psssengers are not liable to toll, of course no pro- 
| 
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visious are made respecting them, except that they 
shall not damage or impede the road in any way. 
The property and management of these roads is 
vested in trustees, consisting of a number of the 
most wealthy, active, and responsible gentry and 
farmers that live in the vicinity of the road. The 
length of road confided to any one trust 1s never very » 
long, and seldom exceeds from 10 to 20 miles in any 
one direct distance; but all the side or cross-roads 
that branch out of the principal road, and are subject 
to tolls under the same act of parliament, are included 
in the same trust, and each trust acts under a separ- 
ate and distinct act of its own. A turnpike road, 
consequently, of several hundred miles in length, 
would be divided into a great number of separate 
time, he is not liable to be again called upon in that } trusts, the one beginning where the other terminates; 
