Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/111

 Does that arise from the construction of the road, or nature of the materials, or both?—Both. The construction of the new road is extraordinarily good, and the materials also are very good.

Can you state what particular construction those roads are of?—They are laid in a form sufficiently round to wash themselves, if there is a shower of rain that comes upon them. They are not very high; and their excellence consists in the smallness of the convexity. They are in the best form I have ever seen roads made.

Mr. William Horne, called in; and Examined.

You keep the Golden Cross Inn, Charing Cross?—Yes.

You are the proprietor of many mail and stage coaches?—I am.

Your attention of course has been directed to the state of the roads over which they travel?—It has.

Can you inform the Committee in what state the roads generally are, in point of goodness?—I think in general they have been better for the last seven years than formerly, though they are now bad. They are generally bad, and might be very much improved.

Can you state to the Committee any particular instances of improvement that have taken place within your own knowledge?—Yes; one between London and Hounslow, which must be known to every body to have been very bad; that road has been made good, which was extremely bad before.

Do you consider that the application of the materials upon that road is at present good?—Yes. It is the better construction of the road, together with the different materials from what they used formerly, which have been the means of making that road better. They have brought chalk and flints from Kent by the canal, and have got them at as small an expense as gravel;