Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/254

 *stone, when broken, is pretty nearly as good as granite. But those suburbs having been taken up, and given great satisfaction the year before last, the magistrates took up half of the street, called Stoke's Croft, which is the great entrance of the town from Gloucestershire. The inhabitants were very much afraid of dust; and therefore they requested the magistrates not to take up the whole of the street, but to make an experiment on one half of it, and after a year's experiment they consented to the whole being taken up. When I left Bristol, which is now three months ago, they were busy taking up the remainder of that street; and I understood it was the intention of the magistrates to proceed gradually to take up a great number of other streets in the town.

Do you know what difference it has made in the expense?—That part of the suburbs that was lifted, and laid again with the same stone broken, cost 5d. a square yard for doing it. I took up the stone; I had nothing to purchase; the stone that came out of the streets fully made the road, and we had a little remaining for repair afterwards, and that operation cost 5d. a square yard; paving, in the city of Bristol, cost 5s. 6d. a square yard when stone is found by the pavior, and I believe they reckon the laying down to be eighteen-pence of that.

What would be the difference of expense annually between & paved street and a road?—I think that road required no repair for the first three years after it was done.

A paved street would require no repair for seven years after it was done?—I think we repaired it for about a fifth part of the money, when it required repair, that a pavement would have cost. We seldom find our streets in Bristol last above three years; the pavements become rugged, and full of holes, and so on; they are obliged to be taken up, and they re-lay them generally once in three years. There is another street in Bristol which has been taken up, but I cannot recollect the