practice in these later ages of the world. To discourse of this a
little in general, and to instance in a place perhaps that has not
its fellow in the kingdom--the parish of Islington, in Middlesex.
There lies through this large parish the greatest road in England,
and the most frequented, especially by cattle for Smithfield market;
this great road has so many branches, and lies for so long a way
through the parish, and withal has the inconvenience of a clayey
ground, and no gravel at hand, that, modestly speaking, the parish
is not able to keep it in repair; by which means several cross-roads
in the parish lie wholly unpassable, and carts and horses (and men
too) have been almost buried in holes and sloughs; and the main road
itself has for many years lain in a very ordinary condition, which
occasioned several motions in Parliament to raise a toll at Highgate
for the performance of what it was impossible the parish should do,
and yet was of so absolute necessity to be done. And is it not very
probable the parish of Islington would part with all the waste land
upon their roads, to be eased of the intolerable assessment for
repair of the highway, and answer the poor, who reap but a small
benefit from it, some other way? And yet I am free to affirm that
for a grant of waste and almost useless land, lying open to the
highway (those lands to be improved, as they might easily be),
together with the eight years' assessment to be provided in workmen,
a noble, magnificent causeway might be erected, with ditches on
either side, deep enough to receive the water, and drains sufficient
to carry it off, which causeway should be four feet high at least,
and from thirty to forty feet broad, to reach from London to Barnet,
paved in the middle, to keep it coped, and so supplied with gravel
and other proper materials as should secure it from decay with small
repairing.