FH

16-7-43.

PREFACE.

SHOULD it be argued that the condition of the highways is a matter of interest only to a very small portion of the community, I can give a very conclusive and unequivocal reply to such a statement; let those who feel no interest in the condition of the highways cease to make use of them. If we require any proof of the influence their use exercises over the comfort and convenience of our lives, let us imagine a time when we are deprived of their use; let us imagine a snow-storm of such terrific violence and intensity, and lasting so long, that every road both of town and country is blockaded and rendered impassable for a month or more. What then would be the result of such a state of things? Would not every man, woman, and child throughout the kingdom feel then the vital importance of this means of communication of which they were deprived?

Most English people know what a London fog is, and are aware that it either puts a stop to traffic in the streets, or renders moving on wheels a matter of extreme difficulty, if not danger. The fog also penetrates into our houses, and renders all those occupations and professions to which the light of day is essential, utterly impossible. Painters, engravers, photographers, and numerous people of other trades and professions, are all forced to cease their labours and remain idle, because a darkness as of night-a darkness such as might even have alarmed Pharaoh-has spread itself like a

mantle over our modern Babylon. Beyond the utmost fringe of that mantle, the land may be bathed in bright winter sunshine, distant objects may appear unusually distinguishable, but over the metropolis of the world-as some too patriotic Englishmen have designated London-there is that overwhelming and invulnerable darkness, which bears not the slightest resemblance to the definition of a fog given by lexicographers, since by them it is described as a dense watery vapour exhaled from the earth. To attribute a London fog to such a cause is a great mistake, since it is undoubtedly owing to the existence of smoke held in suspension, which neither falls nor rises, since there is not sufficient movement in the atmosphere to waft it away. If the difficulty of progression in the streets and on the roads of the metropolis during a London fog paralyses traffic to such an extent, how much more terrible would be the total suspension of road traffic altogether!

Every one knows what it is when a road is taken up in town or country, and wheeled vehicles have to make a lengthened detour; but this experience and that of a London fog give us but a faint idea of what we should suffer if the roads were reduced to the condition they were in two or three centuries ago; but without imagining any such dire catastrophe as this, if fog can so materially interfere with the traffic of the town, how much more would a snow-storm, not confined to the town, but prevailing in all directions throughout the country. As I have before said, persons who have made light of the advantages arising from a perfect condition of the highways and a perfect system of road communication. would then become fully sensible of their value. When roads are blockaded and rendered impassable, it is as though we were deprived of something which in a human being might be compared to one of our senses, such as hearing, smelling, tasting, or seeing; immediately that a thing so essential to our happiness, health, and comfort is denied to us, our imagination raises it to such a pinnacle of usefulness that, in our estimation, it becomes far more valuable than all the other

senses which remain to us, showing that we never appreciate fully the blessings we enjoy until we are deprived of them.

Although long journeys are no longer performed on highroads, except when on a driving tour, yet we make short. journeys on the road, either on foot, horseback, or on wheels, almost every day of our lives; the roads, in fact, we have always with us, beside us, and before us-almost any one living in a town has only to take half-a-dozen steps from his front door, and he stands in the centre of a public roadwaybut the rail we use only occasionally. Into some persons' lives the rail, even in these days of excessive travelling, enters but very little; a journey in a train is one to be recorded; the number of railway journeys performed during the year can be reckoned upon the fingers of one's outstretched hand, but the little journeys made to and fro upon the road are too numerous for recollection.

The chapter on Past and Present speaks of the progress of civilisation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; but the condition of the roads is perhaps one of the truest indications that exist of the progress that has been made by a country in the arts of civilisation.

A traveller gives us in his book of travels his experiences of being cast ashore on the coast of what he supposed was either a barbarous or uninhabited country; but after having walked for eleven hours without coming across a single indication of human occupation or habitation, or even the print of a human foot, to his delight he saw a man's dead body hanging from a gibbet. "My pleasure," he says, "at this cheering prospect was inexpressible, for it convinced me that I was in a civilised country."

This man dangling from a gibbet was to this traveller a convincing proof of the civilisation of the country. It must have been a most gratifying spectacle; at the same time I venture to suppose that a good macadamised road would have raised his drooping spirits to a still further height, since roads in most cases lead somewhere; and the better a road is, the greater prospect there is that the place to which it

leads will furnish one's necessities and offer adequate accommodation and shelter for one's person.

I venture to make one or two remarks upon driving, although in this volume I do not propose to enter into matters relating to the art of driving—that is, in an instructive

sense.

In the course of a walk in any crowded thoroughfare in the fashionable part of London, it will be observed that out of fifty or more professional drivers that pass you by, there are not more than a dozen that know how to drive properly. In making this observation, I refer especially to coachmen in livery. I believe that a great many masters and mistresses are imposed upon; provided the man's character is good, and that he says he can drive, the new master or mistress appears perfectly satisfied. Whether he can drive or no, is a matter upon which they are frequently not qualified to express an opinion; provided that in the course of their drive they do not come into collision with anything, but return home safe and uninjured, they are perfectly contented. It matters not to them that their horses wear a gag bearing-rein, which is inflicting upon them severe suffering; that the cruppers are too tight; that the reins are buckled to the lower bar of a severe bit, when the horses would go better were they on the cheek; that the pole-chains are badly adjusted, and that their coachman looks more as though he were fly-fishing than simply driving a pair of quiet, tractable, and inoffensive horses.

Most of the coachmen in livery appear as though they wanted an extra hand, three instead of two-one for the whip, two for the reins-since when they whip their horses, it is with both hands still clinging to the reins, and not with the left hand holding the reins, and the right hand occupied with the whip. I have never understood yet, what makes them stick their elbows out at right angles from their sides, why their reins are divided wide apart, and when they pull their horses up, why they raise their hands to their chins, or even higher, all the while leaning back as though they were

endeavouring to lie down; if their horses were to stumble, how could they possibly save them from falling, since they have not got them properly in hand? You cannot persuade these gentry to keep their hands low, their elbows down to their sides, their reins firmly grasped in the left hand, whilst the right hand, that holds the whip, is ready to help the left hand by drawing the reins through it in order to shorten them, or to assist in guiding the horses. No, they must behave like mountebanks, separating their reins, and then when they wish to pull up, suddenly bringing up their hands in close proximity to their noses, or when desiring to touch up their horses with the whip, doing so with the right hand holding both the whip and the reins at the same moment, thereby giving a painful jerk to the horses' mouths, in addition to the cut of the lash. A pair of horses can be guided with one hand only, and with one hand be pulled up and made to turn round; of course this is a difficult matter, but as I have done it myself several times, I know it to be perfectly feasible.

Some people will never submit to be taught. It is not because they are not conscious of their deficiency, but because they are too narrow-minded to admit that they are deficient in the knowledge you are willing to impart. They cherish a feeling of false pride, which envelops their minds as in a mantle. I am not now speaking of servants, but of all people who ride and drive badly. I know doctors in the country who drive every day of their lives, and all day from morning to night, and yet they are shocking bad coachmen, with hands and arms all over the place.

I think that all the great men who have raised themselves to eminence from small beginnings must have been men whom it was exceedingly difficult to offend by giving them advice. Their minds must have been continually yearning for additional knowledge, and if the advice they received did not coincide with their opinion, or struck them as being worthless, I feel certain they received it in good part notwithstanding. That they