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Show I MAKE BETTER ROADS. Assuming that 'the County , Commissioners are - public spirited men and would, if possible, place Salt Lake City in a condition to pay more taxes, we suggest sug-gest that they see if they cannot improve the roads' running out of this city in all directions. When strangers come here they look over , the city, but many of them leave with the impression that the city in itself is all right, but that it is like an island in the sea or an oasis in the desert that V there is nothing but desert and mountain around it.. If good roads extended out for merely ten miles, over which an automobile could be swiftly and conw fortably run, the additional impression which the views seen in an hour's ride out of the city either north or south would linger in their minds longer than anything they might see in the city proper, for just outside the city nature in the long ago painted some pictures with master hand, and to those pic-.' pic-.' tures the toilers in the valley have added some glori-' glori-' fied tints. It .would not cost very much to make some good roads. A little plowing and scraping; j then a little coating of broken rock and shak and this rolled down with a heavy roller would do the , business. Then it would be simple justice to have this Idone. The majority of men who own automobiles and fine teams are heavy taxpayers and there should I be for them a feeling of reciprocity. They should i get something in return. Again the farmers in the valley should help in j this work. It would enable them to bring heavier loads to town and come and go quicker. It would add to the life of their vehicles and put flesh on the bones of their horses. It would add to the value of their ground, for now it takes a man twenty minutes ! on the cars to go to his home on the outskirts of the ! city. In twenty minutes he could in an auto run out seven or eight miles to a country place, and some ! men would prefer to have an acre of land with a I place for a cow and some chickens near his home, to i a 25-foot front for a house in town. ! - The arguments in favor of good roads are mani-T' mani-T' i' j fold, there is not one against them. More money ' has been spent in several of the Eastern States for j good roads, during the past fifteen years, than had ; been spent before by the same States for half a cen- ; tury. Old Rome was a big city. It drew in some food ! from her ships, that traded around the Mediter-ranean Mediter-ranean sea, but the bulk of the food had to be drawn from southern Italy. There were no railroads then ! and so the city had to build roads to accommodate i the traffic and those roads are still monuments not only of Roman greatness, but are the records left of how that terrible race esteemed good roads. Our people should do as well as did the men of two thousand thou-sand and more years ago who had not a convenience to work with. |