The Ashburaton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1887. THE BOROUGH ROADWAYS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1511, 19 March 1887, Page 2

The Ashburaton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1887. THE BOROUGH ROADWAYS.

Though m many respect 9, our clean well laid out town is a pltasant and desirable place to live m, though our footways are well-kept, our side-channels clean and filled with pure sparkling water, and though our City Fathers are to be generally congratulated on the order and good government of their municipal domain, there is, nevertheless, a big rift m the lute of public approbation, and a grievous hole m the othewise irreproachable garment of civic righteousness. Need we say that we refer to the condition of our roadways. Not that they are otherwise than sound at bottom; we have no abysses of mud, no sloughs of despond waiting to swallow up the unwary traveller, but we have miles of stony deseit, resembling nothing so much as Arabia Petrcea, and constituting a very via iolonsa for jehus and equestrians, and a most perfect contrivance for breaking horses — to pieces. For rolling stones by thousands, of sizes ranging from that of cricket balls to that of 12 pounder 6hot, are scattered everywhere with a liberal hand, and the jolted occupants of vehicles and the sometimes more than half unseated riders of stumbling horses may be excused for the maledictions, not loud but deep, which rise to their lips as they anathematise the authors of their discomforts and hairbreath 'scapes. We have had heaps of complaints made to us upon this score, and have been implored to give voice to the grievance m the hope that some Councillor may take the matter up and devise a remedy, and we now do bo and, pass on the appeal to Messieurs the Borough Councillors m all earnestness and good faith. There is really good reason for grumbling, and there is no good reason why its cause should not be done away with. One or two things could easily be done at a very trifling expense, viz,, either to employ a man for a few days to rake the rocks into heaps and have them carted away, or to set one or two men tto work with hammers to crack them up. This may seem to some peopled little matter, but the sum of life is made Up of little matters, and little grievances are sometimes more annoying than big ones. Will some worthy municipal representative condescend to bestow a thought upon this one, and earn the thanks of his fellow-citizens by removing all cause of complaint m the direction we have pointed oyt?