button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 292:-
modesty, and never let envy mar your civility. When you prune a fence joining to a public road, put the branches where they can be no annoyance[1]; and then, as you are already exemplary in many moral virtues, you will set a pattern of rural decency worthy of the imitation of several politer parts of the kingdom.
[1] It may also be here proper to remind the husbandmen and farmers of another slovenly practice they are frequently guilty of in most countries; I mean the custom of throwing stones, weeds, and other kinds of rubbish, from their fields, upon the face of the roads, with no more regard to the seemliness of its appearance, than to the moral honesty of the deed. If they cannot comprehend that they have no more right to make use of the roads for this purpose, than of a neighbour's field, and that, though generally connived at, the practice is wrong, the surveyors would do very well to teach them this decent piece of knowledge by the proper severities of the law.
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