NEW ROADS.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In the Spectator of January 10th you say that our roads are worm; than they were one hundred years ago. The locus classicus on British roads is Smiles's "Lives of the Engineers." In Vol. I., pp. 231 and 232, it is stated that in 1802 the Weald of Kent was almost destitute of practicable roads and that Surrey was no better. It was in 1815 that Mr. Macadam devoted himself to road-making, and the mail- coach road from Carlisle to Glasgow was only made pursuant to an Act of Parliament of the year 1816. The Edinburgh and Holyhead roads were made immediately after. The truth is that the coach roads of England only just pre- ceded the railways, and were in fact engineered by the same men,—e.g., Telford, the originator of the Holyhead road and many of our railway bridges. This fact explains the absence of roads in the greater part of the continent of America, which was developed after the advent of the railway. So far from "doing fourteen miles an hour from end to end of the country," the Irish Mail of 1811 performed the journey from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Relyhea.4 "at the rate of only six and three-quarters miles an hour." The Select Com- mittee of the House of Commons on the Holyhead road, A.D. 1819 (Smiles, Vol. II., p. 440), reported that "the professional execution of the new works upon this road greatly surpasses anything of the same kind in these countries. The science which has been displayed in giving the general line of the road a proper inclination through a country whose whole surface consists of a succession of rocks, bogs, ravines, rivers, and precipices, reflects the greatest credit upon the engineer who has planned them; but perhaps a still greater degree of professional skill has been shown in the construction, or rather the building, of the road itself." The Liverpool and Man. ohester Railway was formally opened in 1830. You will be particularly interested in the account, on p. 436, of the manner in which these improvements were brought about :— " No leas than twenty-one townships were indicted by the Postmaster-General. The indictments proved of no use; the localities were too poor to provide the means required to con- struct a line of road sufficient for the conveyance of mails and passengers between England and Ireland. The work was really a national one, to be carried out at the national cost." The money was voted by Parliament in 1815, and the works were carried out, extending over a period of fifteen years. If any great work in road-making is now found necessary, it will have to be done in the same manner.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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