Beau ideal of road-making

The roads have been everywhere more or less improved, but still they fall far short of what they ought to be, in order to put the traveller or carrier, who uses only one horse, on a footing with him who can afford to use a greater number. This ought to be the beau ideal object of road-making, and it is only to be done by extending improvement to all the cross roads, and by allowing no slope in any road whatever to exist greater than that of the Simplon, or about one in forty. We have elsewhere shown how this might be gradually accomplished on all the roads in the country, simply by the employment of the superfluous labour of the different parishes; or, in other words, by giving all able-bodied men, who apply for parish relief, work at a fair rate of wages.