Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/413

 . 3, 1863.] to them, also two miles apart, called forty-foot roads, a term which explains itself.

The land is thus divided into regular square blocks, which are subdivided into twelve plots, each containing one hundred acres. These plots are a mile long and one-sixth of a mile wide, and have each a frontage upon a road to the latter extent. They are numbered in the survey from one upwards, in the first, second, or third concession, and so on, and are then ready for purchase and settlement.

No more departure is made from this plan than convenience or necessity may dictate. When the boundary-line of a township is irregular, from its geographical conformation, a straight line is struck, and the “broken front” is parcelled out according to circumstances.

All this is shown upon the map, but very little is done in reality. The lines are slightly marked by a cutting away of the trees and brushwood, for the convenience of the survey; but these soon grow up again, thicker than ever. Rude boundary-posts are set up: very hard to find. The trees are “blazed,” at intervals;—that is, a portion of the bark is scored or pared off, so that it gleams white for a time, and the scar remains.

All is yet silent, desolate, unbroken forest. Any idea of straight boundary-lines is confounded and lost in the irregularities of the surface, swamps, and a maze of timber. None but an experienced backwoodsman could hope to unravel their seeming tangle. Nothing could be imagined more confusing. Settlers are lost in the woods within a quarter of a mile of their shanty, in the very spot which becomes, before long, one of the fields surrounding their dwelling.

Tracks of the rudest kind are slowly pushed through this wilderness—perhaps, or perhaps not, in the direction indicated by the survey. The imperious necessities of the backwoodsman set at nought all paper limits. When he may have to carry on his back, or drag on a hand sleigh, for twenty miles, a single bag of wheat to be ground, he is not very nice about the road he takes, so that it is the easiest he can find. In course of time the cattle play their part. They strike out a course for themselves, and follow it until it becomes a beaten path. From this cause it arose, says the erudite Knickerbocker, that the streets of old New York were so crooked, being originally built along the cattle-tracks.

But roads, practicable for an ox-sled at least, must be made before long. Trees must be cut down; logs rolled out of the way; here and there even a stump removed. Across the swamps “corduroy” bridges, or causeways of logs, must be laid. And woe betide the adventurous traveller who may attempt to force his way into such a fastness, in a wheeled vehicle. These corduroys will dislocate every bone in his body for him. They will be “clayed” after a while, but labour is awanting as yet, and the net-work of roots makes the road, for a time, almost impassable except on foot.

Such is, and such may readily be understood to be, the rude beginning of roads in a new country.

Bit by bit, matters mend. One settler, by opening up a possibility of getting at his own lot, helps a neighbour to reach his. Inhabitants multiply; more assistance is obtainable; a gradual and never-ceasing process goes on; stumps and roots rot out; ditches nan be dug, to drain off the water, and the excavated earth can be thrown up upon the road to raise and shape it. After a while, gravel, or even broken stone, may be added, and lo! a Queen’s highway, upon which you may bowl along at seven or eight miles an hour. Some of the roads in the township in which I live are of the latter class; others, which have certainly been opened for thirty years or more, are yet scarcely passable at certain seasons.

In the making and repairing of roads in Canada, tithe is taken in kind. Every man is rated, not for so much money, but for so many days’ work, in proportion to the amount of his assessment. Every adult, not assessed at all, or not at a higher rate than two days, must furnish two days’ work. The shoemaker must go ultra crepidam for once; the tailor must straighten his legs and descend from his perch; even the schoolmaster must leave his blackboard a carte noire, and dismiss his urchins to their own devices. Of course they may act by substitute, if they can or choose to do so; or they may compound with the pathmaster, at the rate of half a dollar a day. All these outsiders murmur; but with only a show of reason. Good roads are for the advantage of the community at large, and, if these persons have no vehicles, they benefit indirectly. Perhaps it comes rather hard upon the hired labourer, who has to forfeit two days’ wages.

In the infancy of the colony this method of proceeding was, and in the rude settlements of the backwoods still is, the best plan that could be pursued. Money is a scarce article. The kind of work to be performed is very rough, and the mutual assistance of a gang of men working together is frequently necessary, as in the removal of large trees, rocks, or the like. Besides, the machinery for having the labour performed by contract for money is not yet in good working order.

But, in the old-settled districts of the country, it is about the very worst plan that could be devised. Whether the roads are good or bad, whether much labour is required or little, the same number of days’ work must be exacted and must be “put in” somehow. It happens, too, that the disinterestedness of human nature, so universally displayed on all other occasions, suffers an eclipse in this instance. Men have no objection to see their neighbours working hard at a road for them to travel on, but have no idea of labouring themselves for their neighbours’ convenience. It seems to be something like those donkey-races, in which every man rides somebody else’s donkey, and the last in, wins.

The pathmaster, who is annually nominated by the township council, has it at his own option to appoint the time at which the work shall be performed, under his own personal superintendence and responsibility. But custom fixes the period within the month of June. It is a “slack” time then, and it suits the convenience of all alike. The roads also are, at that time, in good condition for working upon.

Having made up his mind, the pathmaster goes