Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1896 — GOOD ROADS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOOD ROADS

Shaded Highways. During these hot summer days is when the traveler on a dusty, treeless highway sighs for "Some boundless contiguity of shade,” or at least for good roads bordered by trees whose sheltering boughs would offer some protection against the rays Of the celestial scorcher, the sun. Trees add more than beauty to a country . highway, although that fed-' ture atone should be a sufficient incentive to insure their presence. But they are comforting, as well, and their shade helps to retain a degree of moisture that retiirds the making of dust. The useful highway should be made beautiful and comfortable as well. Every negligent highway commissioner Should be compelled to ride a wheel along a sun-blistered road, or better yet, he harnessed to a toad, as is the 1 poor dumb horse. This would bring him to a realization of the fact that a little shad,e along the road is a good and gracious thing. Make the highways beautiful.

HE road is mighty shaky an’ • the bottom’s tumbled out; The mud' goes down to Chiny an’ a horse cayu’t git "about.

They hain’t been ary soul go by for purty nigh a week, An’ the worter in the highway is a sorry, : soggy streak.* ‘ " ’,!>;• ' ’ 1 ;. I hain’t got no terbaccer ner I c.fyn’t git enny more, . For l’m too old an’ stiff to climb the fences to the store. It’s lonesome ez a funeral to hev to stay an’ stay A-waitin'’ for the worter fer to sort o’ oo«e away. An’ yif it's gratifyin’, ez I'm lookin’ through'the piffle, An* wat'ch the road arsinkin' in the drizzle o’ the min. -To know ’at while the mmL nrevents ahauliiT of a toad. It keeps them blame bisickle chaps from usin’, o’ the road. The Gbod Roads Teacher. “Charity begins at home,” and In many insiJtnees it ends there. It is that way with other tilings of this world. Not until selfish, thoughtless man got down out of his spring-seated buggy and on to a wheel did he discover the sorry condition of the roads. 2r It was then that he learned how very rough had been the tv ay over which he had lashed his poor, dumb animals. It f was -then he.r&ceiYeiha jgajnfully keen appreciation of the undesirable qualities of mud and stones as road-making materials. When the pneumatic-tired bicycle appeared aud “punctures” became things to be dreaded, he awoke to a realization of the large number of injuries his horses’ feet were likely to receive. Thus the thoughtless man became humane. He suddenly desired a good, smooth road, for himself and his horse. Coming into more direct contact, with the road taught him that the horse was in need of a friend. «=•- “Their cause I plead—plead i j in heart and mind; . I A fellow-feeling makes one* wondrous kind.” S If horses could talk, and are really grateful creatures, they would never tire of singing the bicycle's praises, for the coming of the wheel was, in a broad sense, the emancipation of the horse from much of the abuse that had been Inflicted upon him. The humane society should canonize the bicycle, for it has been the means of impressing upon men's mibds the need of better highways. With the thought of making better roads comes the desire to keep them better, and hence a demand for broader tires on heavy vehicles. Narrow tires must be done away with. The bicycle, while demanding a good road. is. Itself, a road maker, or at least, a road keeper. Its soft, rubber feet are as gentle as they are swift. The wheel came, first, ns a sentimental teacher of the theory of good roads, which has since broadened into a great, practical movement in which commerce is as much interested as are the devotees of pleasure. When ill roads are in good condition for wheel riding, it will be more jif.n pleasure for horses to exist, and for men to drive them.