Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/78

 *tion, either to obviate its defects, or to procure a better material, has induced several of the small trusts, leading from that city, to have recourse to the plan of paving their roads, as far as their means will admit. Instead of applying their ample funds to obtain good materials for the roads, they have imported stone from Scotland, and have paved their roads, at an expense ten times greater than that of the excellent roads lately made on some of the adjoining trusts. Very few of these pavements have been so laid as to keep in good order for any length of time; so that a very heavy expense has been incurred without any beneficial result, and it is to be lamented that this wasteful and ineffectual mode is upon the increase in the neighbourhood of London.

This practice has also been adopted in places where the same motive cannot be adduced: in Lancashire, almost all the roads are paved at an enormous cost, and are, in consequence, proverbially bad. At Edinburgh, where they have the best and cheapest materials in the kingdom, the want of science to construct good roads, has led the trustees to adopt the expedient of pavements, to a considerable extent; and at an expense hardly credible, when compared with