34 A. 743 | N.H. | 1895
"The supreme court on petition and notice the county commissioners may order any part of the expense of repairing a highway to be paid by the county, when the whole would be burdensome to the town." P. S., c. 73, s. 2. The question whether the whole expense is burdensome, is a question fact. It is substantially the same question here as arises under P. S., c. 69, s. 11, and c. 72, s. 4, between towns. Hudson v. Nashua,
The question of burdensomeness and its extent is to be determined, not in view of any one piece of evidence, but upon all the evidence. Neither the benefit of the road to the town nor the burden of taxation is alone the test. The expense is not necessarily burdensome to a town, within the meaning of the statute, because the highway is of little or no use to its citizens. Towns are required to make roads which are of practical advantage to few or, it may be, even to none of their inhabitants. Nor is the expense necessarily burdensome for the mere reason that it increases, or not burdensome for the mere reason that it does not increase, taxation in the town beyond that of neighboring towns and beyond the average taxation in other towns of the county. Whittredge v. Concord,
No judgment can be rendered on the finding of the referee. The report will be recommitted or a new trial had, as may be ordered at the trial term.
Case discharged.
All concurred. *270