The “business” end of county road administration is often weighted down to earth with the same sublime faith in the wisdom of the average citizen. Rarely have counties maintained anything that approximated adequate records of cost or serviceability of their roads and bridges or data upon which they could construct a satisfactory policy of construction, if indeed their governing bodies have dreamed of the need or the value of such aids. Even of so highly developed a community as Monroe County, New York, in which the City of Rochester is situated, it could be said concerning the office of highway superintendent that “the only record now kept is a bill book in which are entered all claims against the county highway fund which are paid through the superintendent’s office, all payrolls and all claims for personal service.”[12] Much the same lack of appreciation for facts was revealed in a cruder way in a grand jury investigation during 1912 of the methods of the Board of Commissioners in Darke County, Ohio, where it was discovered that minutes were rarely read and contracts were voted twenty at a time and sometimes without the formality of a vote, in direct violation of the law. From another middle western state comes an illuminating description of the method of awarding bids on bridge construction: “Each competitor submitted his own drawings and an estimate to a board of commissioners, not one of whom had the least technical knowledge or practical experience, but was ‘led away’ generally _by the size of the drawing_ and the accompanying estimate. “The result was shoddy work, insufficient piers or abutments, piles not driven down to any safe and permanent depth and finally a bridge that was built for appearance, not durability nor permanency. Just as soon as we had a flood bringing down logs, stumps and trees, some of these would strike or swing against the piers and down came the structure, floating away or lodging in the stream, causing a jamb to accumulate, holding up the stream and overflowing land for miles. “It took many years to get a system where an engineer designed a bridge with details of construction, steel or iron cylinders filled with concrete as piers, and a superintendent of construction who knew his business to take charge of the work. “Thus we spent thousands of dollars for bridges to be erected simply to see them carried out; in one instance twice. But the cost and failure combined in time brought forth such protests that such a system would not be tolerated longer; but the waste was done and the money practically thrown away.