Press enter after choosing selection

A Modern Instance

A Modern Instance image
Parent Issue
Day
7
Month
April
Year
1891
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

As age in America is reckoned, Mendhain, N. J., is an oíd settlement. Tho cliurch which stands on the hilltop and isa landmark for miles around was established in its present location 152 yearsago. In the churchyard there are tombstones commemorating worthies who passed over to the great majority ten, twenty and thirty years earlier. Untü, aífter the war this, an exclusively gricultural aection, was prosperous in a moderate and quiet way, though there has probably from the beginning never dwelt within the township a man who could really be called rich. During all this time and up to the present there has never been a mile of railroad in the township, and the farmera have been atsolutely obligeJ to depend on the highways and country roads to get their snrplus producís to market. It is 6even miles from here to the county town, though only about four miles of this distance is within the township. This is the chief highway, and every man in the neighborhood is obliged to use thia highway more or less. Upon inquiry I foxmd that the total inileage of the township roads is thirtyfive. If this total were divided into three classes we should have five miles in the first class, ten in the second and twenty in the third. These three classes I should define about in this way: lst Qass - The main highway over some part of which all the people of the township mnst drive in order to transact business at the township village and postoffice and the county seat. 2d Class - Boads over which, to reach the main highway, the dwellers in certain sections mnst go. 3d Claes- The roads subsidiary to those of the second class and necessary to very few persons. How any of these roads carne to be located as they are I do not know. Certainly they were not laid out with reference to the topography of the country. During the century and a half in which many of these roads have been opened there lias been first and last a good deal of stone put in the center of the roads, bnt it is trae also that there never has been a mile of road constructed ín a method any engineer or road builder would commená The worst feature, however, is the method of maintainmg these bighways. For many years past the tax levy for roads has been fl,600 per year. Such a sum could not oe eipected to go very far with thirtyïve miles of road. uufc, tucu, iíxiü uut; prixiujpai uignway across the township is only five mués long, and upon it, I think, fully one-half of thifl suta shonld be expended, whüe one-half of the other half shoold be expended oneachof the other classes. There seems to be no system, however, regulating the expendí ture of this money, which, by the way, isnotmoney. Butastothat directly: Thetownahipcommitteeapportio.is the levy among the varióos districts, each in charge -oí a road orerseer. In Ihis, kissing goes very moch by favor, notwitbstudmg the fact tbst erery man on the commrttee, and indeed every man in the towrahip, has KÜrect personal interestin bettering the conditíonof the roads. Bat as they lack the knvtrledge - without which roads can neither be bmtt nor maintained - it does not make ranch difference how they divide np the spofl. When the spring planting is over the overseers summon the farmers to come and help workthe roads. They know that all of them mean to work ont their tas, and their labor is accotmted for at $150 per day, when the regnlar rate of Mring is only $1.25. No one pays his road tax in money except those who are non-resident owners, ' and one or two otheis, perhaps. The overseers get ttneir men out, and then it is bad time for the traveler. They don't work very hard, fortonately, and the levy is soon exhansted. Were it not for these two merciful facts the roads would be impassable nearly all the time. Thedr method is eimplicity itself. They plow up all the sod along the sidea of the road and throw it into the center, together wiüi what mud they can find in the ditches. All stones are carefnlly thrown against the f enees on either side. This method of working the roads is in a section where nearly every field has on its snrface an abundance of looee stones, which only need to be broken slightly to make the best kind of road material. Besides this there is au abundance of limestone easy of access and gravel as well. Who can compute the amoant of loss the varióos generations who have dwelt heare in the last centnry and a half have sustamed by reason of these ill constructed and wretchedly maintained highways. Ifc would sicken me to go into the computation. Now as to what it would cost to thorooghly equip this township with excellent roada. I estímate that $10,000 per mile would bnild the roads of the first clasa; $5,000 per müe thoso of the secand daas and $2,000 per nrile those of the third. This would make a total of $1SO,000. That seems an enarmoos som when it is taken into consideration that the assessor only fonnd $850,000 in the township last year. Bat look at it in another way. This particular section is admirably adapted for country homes for city people. The lovely huls rise gracefnlly and green one over the other in groups and stretches, untü one can easity imagine while here that it is an Italian sky above Mm and that he is Bojourning in pictnresque Tnscany. If the experiecce of Mr. Nevin, of Smnrrrit, be of value, the assessor would find at least $2,000,000 worth of property as soon as the roads had been built and $5,000,000, or ruay be more, as soon as the worid had learned that driving in the roads hereabout was a pleasnre instead of a pain. This is, I fancy, a picture of the condition of thousands of neighborhoods in the United States, and I have only drawn it because while local it is also typical. Jno. GtaJiBR Speed. The new raspberry Gladstono originated with Charles Cazpenter, Kellv'e Island. O.