Human Nature v. the Roman Road

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18009, 20 November 1926, Page 17

Human Nature v. the Roman Road

(Written for the “Star” by

A.H.C.

Before the Roman came to Rye, or out The Vollins English drunkard made the

rolling English road. AND if he did like to go to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head there is no doubt that he did it in a most picturesque if not strictly utilitarian manner. England is by no means wholely civilised. Directly one gets off the bealen track, it is fairly obvious that the roads were made purely tor convenience and that the present higi.falluting notions of town-planning were

scarcely appreciated when Farmer (.n: - made the track between his farm and the next. And when Farmer Hayseed came along and took up his selection over there—well, off went the old track at a new angle and it probably had to dodge round the turnips in ne process. When the Romans came with all their boasted efficiency, they could see no reason why they should follow a merry road, a mazey road, that rambled round the shire.” Out came ruler and pencil and Julius Caesar drew a straight line on his map from London to wherever he wanted to go and said “ that’s a road,” and as he was used to saying go, and his people were very much used to going when he said so, that black line became a road that has survived to this day.

Now, why has it survived? Because it wasn’t used, except by those models of efficiency who could understand modern progress and such innovations. The Roman military machine thought it was beautiful, the legionaries clanking up and down between Sorbodinium and Londinium, could clank in perfect step and keep in mathematically straight rows. But how about the good old English drunkard? He still staggered along his old familiar tracks and Farmer Giles still dodged round thf corners where the turnips used to be and after them “the sexton came, the parson and the squire,” even if they did go “to Bannockburn by way of Brighton pier.” Nineteen centuries have passed, and in a new country whose chief characteristic is its flatness, the descendants of the Gileses and the Hayseeds have settled down on new farms and new tracks wander round new turnip patches. Everyone is happy and contented and with much hard work everything in the garden is lovely. Suddenly a new figure appears on the scene just as the Roman appeared in Britain so many years before. Ho! What’s all this about? he says. This won’t do. We will have a city with a cathedral in the middle and four nice straight sides each a mile long and all the streets exactly so, crossing each other at right angles. And the roads to other places? Where’s my ruier and pencil ? But Farmer Giles and his friend Hayseed nav. got work to do—to live. All this organisation and fuss seems to have nothing to do with them, and while the Roman lays out his streets and puts his cathedral just alongside what be takes to be a quite haphazard foot track, Giles and Hayseed go on

with their little bits of tradings and use the tracks they know. A street pegged out over a swamp has no attraction for them. Suddenly the Roman has time to look round and there diagonally across all his lovely streets so straight and so rectangular, there has grown a road fairly straight to be sure, but with just a little bend here, another there—oh, horror! It’s the little foot track where he is putting his cathedral —it quietly meanders on with another little bend here and another there. Human nature is not cut out for efficient- it always has and always will prefer the longest way round. There arc not straight lines in nature and a long straight mound of shingle between two long lines of gorse with the tops of a plantation in the distance, are an inspiration only to get oil it as soon as possible. This funrfy little worm called man has an inquiring nature. Any fool can see down a long straight road or make one. It often takes a genius to make a corner and a brave man to turn it. Man is craving for something new all the time, and to human nature a long straight road is no more inviting than the life of No. what-ever-it is in a Ford factory. The winding lanes of the Did Country are typical G f the roving spirit of the race. Who knows what adventure one may not meet round the next bend—a blushing milkmaid or Mr NeoCroesus in his new Rolls-Fordson. In the country lane, in the first place, one has all that the heart could desire. but not on a Roman road; in the second your meditation on the beauties of nature around you, the flowers at the side, the hawthorn hedge, will be rudely disturbed by the necessity of proving to yourself most pointy edly that the hawthorn deserves its The roads and lanes of England abound with all the beauties of nature and are as attractive for their variety as for their beauty. The roads of Canterbury? Oh, tut!