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For Gracchus, in defiance of the principle that the author of a measure should not be its executant, was his own road-maker, as his brother Tiberius had been his own land commissioner. He was the patron of the contractor and the benefactor of the Italian artisan.
It is only in this way that we can account for the remarkable fact, that the first extensive maker of roads who pursued it as a business, was not an engineer, nor even a mechanic, but a Blind Man, bred to no trade, and possessing no experience whatever in the arts of surveying or bridge-building, yet a man possessed of extraordinary natural gifts, and unquestionably most successful as a road-maker.
By 'roads' must be understood bridle-paths, worn by traffic alone across the gravelly valleys, but elsewhere constructed with great toil and expense, as Nature compels, the road-maker to follow her lead, and carry his track along the narrow valleys, ravines, gorges, and chasms which she has marked out for him.
There's no chance of getting at the truth if you don't let a man state his case but no. If he can't make you see his case then is the time to jib, not before." "Oh, get out!" cried a rowdy English road-maker in the crowd. "We know all right what Ingolby's after." "Eh, well, what is he after?" asked the old man looking the other in the eye. "What's he after? Oof-oof-oof, that's what he's after.
We allude to John Metcalf, commonly known as "Blind Jack of Knaresborough," to whose biography, as the constructor of nearly two hundred miles of capital roads as, indeed, the first great English road-maker we propose to devote the next chapter. John Metcalf was born at Knaresborough in 1717, the son of poor working people.
Severus was, like Trajan and Hadrian, a great builder and road-maker. The whole empire was connected by a network of paved roads made by the soldiery, cutting through hills, bridging valleys, straight, smooth, and so solid that they remain to this day. This made communication so rapid that government was possible to an active man like him.
It is all the manure the stony pastures receive; it cloaks the ground and prevents the frost bursting pipes; it is the best I had almost written the only road-maker in the States. On the other side it can rise up in the night and bid the people sit still as the Egyptians.
The steamship, the hydraulic lift, the patent road-maker, the railway-train, the electric tram-car, the steam-driven mill, the Maxim gun and the torpedo boat, once made, may perform their labours with the guidance and assistance of comparatively few hands; but a whole army of men of science, engineers, clerks, and highly-trained workmen is necessary for their invention, construction, and maintenance.
Probably one of the best illustrations of character in connection with the development of the inventions of the last century, is to be found in the life of Thomas Telford, the greatest and most scientific road-maker of his day, to which we proceed to direct the attention of the reader.
The prospector in his humble way slowly but surely opens up the country, making horse or camel-pads, here, there, and everywhere, from water to water, tracks of the greatest service to the Government road-maker and surveyor who follow after. He toils and labours, suffers, and does heroic deeds, all unknown except to the few.