The proper town or city authorities have jurisdiction to lay out or alter ways within the limits of their respective cities or towns, and to order specific repairs thereon. The county commissioners have also jurisdiction to lay out public ways, the termini of which are exclusively within the same town; and they are also clothed with authority to lay them out from town to town. Hence roads may be either town ways or public highways. When the proceedings for their location originate with the town or city officials, they are town ways; and when the proceedings originate with the county commissioners, they are public highways.[4] Suppose a new road is wanted, or an alteration in an old one is desired, within the limits of a town, a petition therefor may be presented either to the town authorities or to the county commissioners. If the proposed road is not situated entirely within the limits of one town or city, then the commissioners alone have jurisdiction in the premises. When the selectmen or road commissioners of a town decide to lay out a new road, or to alter an old one, their doings must be reported and allowed at some public meeting of the inhabitants regularly warned and notified therefor; but while the inhabitants are vested with the right of approval, they have no right to vote that the selectmen or road commissioners shall lay out a particular way, as it is the intention of the statute that these officials shall exercise their own discretion upon the subject.[5] If the town authorities unreasonably refuse or neglect to lay out a way, or if the town unreasonably refuses or delays to approve and allow such way as laid out or altered by its officials, then the parties aggrieved thereby may, at any time within one year, apply to the county commissioners, who have authority to cause such way to be laid out or altered. But when a petition for a public way is presented in the first instance to the county commissioners, or when the matter is brought before them by way of appeal, their decision on the question of the public necessity and convenience of such way is final, and from it there is no appeal. If damage is sustained by any person in his property by the laying out, alteration, or discontinuance of a public way, he is entitled to receive just and adequate damages therefor, to be assessed, in the first place, by the town or city authorities or by the county commissioners, and, finally, by a jury, in case one is demanded by him. He is entitled to a reasonable time to take off any timber, wood or trees, which may be upon the land to be taken; but if he does not remove the same within the time allowed, he is deemed to have relinquished his right thereto. In estimating the damage to the land-owner caused by the laying out or the alteration of a public way over his land, neither the city nor town authorities nor a jury are confined to the value of the land taken. He is also entitled to the amount of the damage done to his remaining land by