WOODEN BRIDGES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 276, 28 November 1878, Page 2

WOODEN BRIDGES.

To the Editor of the 'Evening Mail.'

Sib,— l do not know any better way than through your columns (if you will permit me) to call the attention of the Roud Boards of ' this district to a risk to which they submitvery unnecessarily as it seems to me— those" of her Majesty's subjects who ride on horseback. The other day, a wet day, ridirig across a small wooden bridge, my horse's feet slipped up, and he fell with me flat on his flank. This is the third time this accident has happened to me, on different bridges, ; and with different horses. Speaking shortly, afterwards to a drover he told me that his horses had fallen so often 011 wooden bridges" that now he could hardly get them to face a wet wooden bridge. What then? Some will be sure to say " never cross a wooden bridge but at a walk." Very fine! But not always quite bo easy to do, especially when riding after cattle or horses, to say nothing of the monstrous demand (as it seems to me) that people should make themselves suit,. the bridge, instead of the bridge being made to : suit the people! Argal : Every woodfln bridge intended for horses should haVe 1 a roadway of broken stone, gravel, or sand, or of something less slippery when wet than boards; even split slabs would be somewhat better than smooth boards, which when a little dirty and wet, are as slippery as a bar of soap.— l am, &c, ; Hoksejian.