Correspondence.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 253, 29 April 1895, Page 2

Correspondence.

■ — o— -. * — PEMBERTON ROADS. TO THE EDITOR OV THE STAR. Sir, — I am writing to you in hopes af obtaining a solution of a small mystery from you or one of your numerous subscribers, and also to point out a grievance, and a heavy one, from which we suffer, in order to see if some remedy cannot be found for it. The question that has puzzled me is that however sound in mind and body a man may be tho moment he becomes a Councillor, a member of a Road Board, and, shall I add, a Borough Engineer, he may keep his corpore sano (I forget the nominative case) but undoubtedly loses his mens sana. Otherwise I cannot understand the reason that the metalling of the Birmingham roads towards Apiti and Pemberton has been undertaken at tliis season of the year, and still less can I understand the Engineer sanctioning the metal that is being placed upon them. Anyone who has travelled on that road in tha winter, I refer more especially to the Pemberton road, will acknowledge that the Board were well advised when they shirked -responsibility, as I am told they did la.t winter, and will agree with the carters, horsemen, and thrice unhappy pedestrians, who travelled that road and who describe it as a " holy terror." You, who reside ia Feilding and are so well cared for in the matter of roads. by a paternal, I almost said maternal, Council, cannot realize what we have to put up with, but I think it is time to pull our feet out of the mud before it is too late aud winter sets, in and to put our feet down solid on'good metalled roads once and for all, and, if necessary, on the neck of our Engineer. With an Engineer who is, without doubt, one of the cleverest and most thoughtful of men, and who is always devising pleasant surprises for us in the shape of making roads Where they are not wanted. The Spur road, for instance, which I am told is. to be made, formed, and metalled, for some , twenty odd chains, and down which there is only one resident, and he only a few chains down, with such an Engineer we should be glad to See" that he is ambitious, and aims at livalling the English roads, and as , w«f are a mostly hoiee-riding race h«has striven to copy and improve on the weli-ino-vu "Horse Parade" — Rotten How. I take this opportunity of congratulating him on the success attending his efforts, for more Rotten Ro-ads I never expect to see. The metal at present put on is first-class rotten stone and sand, ahd admirable for ship ballast, and to form the finest of mud, but as material for a good road it is a dead failure. I think I am safe ia saying that this is the opinion of the whole of the unfortunates who are obliged to travel these mud baths. There is no excuse as good metal is easily abtainable at a trifling additional cost. I am, etc., STUC__ _Iff-___E.M-_>. Birmingham, April 24th, 1895.