Would you prefer doing that in dry weather or in wet weather?—In wet weather, always; I always prefer mending a road in weather not very dry.
Are you of opinion that any alteration of the present law, either in regard to the repeal of the present regulations or the enactment of new ones, could advantageously take place in regard to the shape of wheels, and the allowance of weight to be carried in waggons and carts?—I am of opinion that the descriptions of wheels given in all the acts of parliament in the last sessions are the most convenient and useful; and I have thought of the matter very much, without being able to suggest any alteration profitable to the public. With respect to weights, I consider there are very great difficulties in that business. We have weighing machines in the neighbourhood I now am in, and I am persuaded in many instances that they are made instruments of oppression, and in a great many cases the means of committing very great fraud on the commissioners and others; and if some method could be fallen upon by which weighing machines might be dispensed with altogether, and the road reasonably protected, I should think it a very great public advantage. In the new Bristol Act, I have proposed to the commissioners that they should submit to parliament to lay a toll-duty upon the number of horses in a progressive ratio, so as to compel those people who offend to bring in their hands the penalty in the shape of toll; I think it would prevent a great deal of that system of entering into combinations between the toll collectors and the waggoners, which is carried on to a great extent.
Do you think, that if horses in narrow-wheeled waggons were obliged to draw otherwise than at length, it would afford any protection to the road?—Yes.
Has not the practice of making horses draw at length very much a tendency to make the horses follow one track, be the road ever so good?—Yes; and I must mention to the Committee, that the feet of horses on ill-made roads do full as much
