t it will require such
a sum per perch of twenty-one feet, to make or repair the same. A
certificate to this purpose (of which printed forms are sold), with the
blanks filled up, is signed by the measurers, and also by two persons
called overseers, one of whom is usually the person applying for the
road, the other the labourer he intends to employ as an overseer of the
work, which overseer swears also before the justice the truth of the
valuation. The certificate thus prepared is given by any person to some
one of the grand jury, at either of the assizes, but usually in the
spring. When all the common business of trials is over, the jury meets
on that of roads; the chairman reads the certificates, and they are all
put to the vote, whether to be granted or not. If rejected, they are
torn in pieces and no further notice taken; if granted, they are put on
the file.

This vote of approbation, without any further form, enables the person
who applied for the presentment immediately to construct or repair the
road in question, which he must do at his own expense; he must finish it
by the following assizes, when he is to send a certificate of his having
expended the money pursuant to the application; this certificate is
signed by the foreman, who also signs an order on the treasurer of the
county to pay him, which is done immediately. In like manner are
bridges, houses of correction, gaols, etc. etc., built and repaired. If
a bridge over a river which parts two counties, half is done by one and
the other half by the other county.

The expense of these works is raised by a tax on the lands, paid by the
tenant; in some counties it is acreable, but in others it is on the
plough land, and as no two plough lands are of the same size, is a very
unequal tax. In the county of Meath it is acreable, and amounts to one
shilling per acre, being the highest in Ireland; but in general it is
from threepence to sixpence per acre, and amounts of late years through
the whole kingdom to one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.

The juries will very rarely grant a presentment for a road which amounts
to above fifty pounds, or for more than six or seven shillings a perch,
so that if a person wants more to be made than such a sum will do, he
divides it into two or three different measurements or presentments. By
the Act of Parliament, all presentment-roads must be twenty-one feet wide
at least from fence to fence, and fourteen feet of