The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer: With an Introductory History of Roads and Travelling in Great Britain

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John Murray, 1867 - Roads - 331 pages
 

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Page 44 - ... breakings down. They will here meet with ruts, which I actually measured, four feet deep, and floating with mud, only from a wet summer.
Page 41 - Of all the cursed roads that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury.
Page 26 - In years of plenty many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen both men and women perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.
Page 44 - They will here meet with ruts, which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer ; what therefore must it be after a winter ? The only mending it receives is tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose than jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner.
Page 70 - It was really astonishing to hear with what accuracy he described its course and the nature of the different soils through which it was conducted. Having mentioned to him a boggy piece of ground it passed through, he observed that ' that was. the only place he had doubts concerning, and that he was apprehensive they had, contrary to his directions, been too sparing of their materials.
Page 1 - We went in the stage-coach, and returned in the waggon, as my mother said, because my cough was violent. The hope of saving a few shillings was no slight motive; for she, not having been accustomed to money, was afraid of such expenses as now seem very small. She sewed two guineas in her petticoat, lest she should be robbed. " We were troublesome to the passengers; but to suffer such inconveniences in the stage-coach was common in these days, to persons in much higher rank.
Page 76 - I paid 15/. in a single year for repairs of carriage-springs on the pavement of London; and I now glide without noise or fracture, on wooden pavements. I can walk, by the assistance of the police, from one end of London to the other, without molestation; or, if tired, get into a cheap and active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels, which the hackney coaches were at the beginning of my life.
Page xxiii - For, what advantage is it to men's health, to be called out of their beds into these coaches an hour before day in the morning, to be hurried in them from place to place, till one hour, two, or three within night; insomuch that, after sitting all day in the...
Page 1 - Whitchureh, twenty miles; the second day, to the Welsh Harp ; the third, to Coventry ; the fourth, to Northampton ; the fifth, to Dunstable ; and, as a wondrous effort, on the last, to London before the commencement of night. The strain and labor of six good horses, sometimes eight, drew us through the sloughs of Mireden, and many other places.
Page xxiii - tis long, and when once you are in it It holds you as fast as...

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