Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 288]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

272

the streets and alleys in fee simple is vested in the public. III. 50.]

OBSTRUCTION OF HIGHWAYS.

[11 111. 554—13

As there is invested in the £tate the power of establishing and improving highways, so is there power to prevent and punish their obstruction by parties claiming the right to use them for agricultural or other purposes, for horse racing, or those who from venal motives obstruct or injure them. Indictment by the grand jury, fine and imprisonment, according to the nature of the offense, is provided in our criminal code.

LAW OF THE ROAD.

The law of the road, sec. 1, chap. 93, provides that "when persons traveling with carriages shall meet upon any turnpike road or public highway, the persons so meeting shall turn their carriages to the right of the center of the road, so as to permit each carriage to pass without interruption," under a penalty of $5 for every neglect or offense. This requirement is positive and unequivocal, making no exceptions in favor of loads of wood or brick; nor in favor of stupid and unmannerly drivers; nor in favor of persons driving two horses and a stout lumber wagon; nor does it make any exceptions against persons driving only one horse and a gossamer like vehicle; yet how often has ill manners and stupidity, backed up t>y mule muscle and a twohorse wagon served to assert the law of might against right, causing the weaker party to retreat to the ditch or see his cherished turn-out wrecked and himself in the hands of the coroner, the subject of a fatal accident. Attached to the above law is a provision that the penalty shall not be recovered " unless some injury to person or property " result from the appropriation of the road by the offending party. In the name of the oppressed minority, whose occasional airings on the public highways are constantly disturbed by visions of death and destruction; and in the name of fancy horses and pleasure carriages, which are loyal institutions, and are specifically taxed to pay the national debt, I protest against this latter clause of the law, discriminating in favor of ill-manners and stupidity, and giving no rights to the weak minority unless they first suffer themselves to be smashed into a mass of splinters, broken harness and lacerated human flesh. What is the use of a law which has attached to it a clause requiring the injured party to present himself before the court with a wheel torn off, his arm in a sling, or his head plastered up before it will hear his complaints ? The knowledge that an offender is punished by a just law is very grateful to the wounded feelings of an injured party, when coming to him during this life; but the knowledge that, after your post mortem examination, and the verdict of an impartial coroner's jury upon your dead corpse has been formally rendered* the brutal offender will be required to pay $5 for the indulgence in the luxury of sending your mangled and bleeding body into the ditch, beneath the objects you prized most highly in life, there to be laughed at by the drivers of mute teams and stout wagons, is most horrible. If our legislators have any feelings, or any of them drive light buggies, they will certainly repeal this latter most