Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/202

 *ment of trustees, it is common to divide them, and to assign a particular length to the trustees who live near it, without employing any person in the capacity of a surveyor. When this is the case, the state of repair depends much upon the observation and attention of the trustee; and the change in the state of the road often marks out the change of superintendence. A relative of mine has given up a good deal of his time and attention to a part of the roads in Stirlingshire, of which he is one of the trustees: no professional man could, perhaps, do the business better; and the effect of this attention is very visible. Instances of the same kind are frequent, but it is not to be expected that trustees generally can both understand, and have so great a relish for serving the public, as that the detail of the repairs of roads, if imposed upon them, will be always executed with the attention they require.

The case of parish roads is still worse, where the inhabitants are, without much regard to their habits of life, obliged in their turns to serve the annual office of surveyor of the highways. If such persons mean to signalize themselves during their being in office, the first step is often to undo what their predecessor has done, or has not perfected; and the love of self and of friends determines them to make sure while they have it in their power, that some favoured roads or lanes are put into proper order. If the surveyor is, on the contrary, an unwilling officer, or if the attention to his own affairs prevents him giving his time to the duties of the office, he avoids the fine by accepting the charge, pay the bills and wages without much knowledge of their nature or accuracy, and one of the labourers becomes, in fact, the road-surveyor; but in every case of annual nominations there is this evil, that so soon as the surveyor has, by a year's apprenticeship, begun to know something of the