f fifty
dollars.[111]

[111] Pub. St. c. 203, Sec. 76.

If in travelling you find the road impassable, or closed for
repairs, and you find it convenient to turn aside and enter upon
adjoining land in order to go on your way, don't be careless or
imprudent; for if you take down more fences and do more damage than
necessary, you may have to answer in damages to the owner of the
land; and if you meet with an accident while thus out of the road,
you cannot look to the town for any remuneration therefor, because
when you go out of the limits of the way voluntarily, you go at your
peril and on your own responsibility.[112]

[112] 8 Met. 391; 7 Cush. 408; 7 Barb. 309.

Don't make the mistake of supposing that everything that frightens
your horse or causes an accident in the highway is a defect for
which the town is liable. If a town negligently suffers snowdrifts
to remain in the road for a long time, and thereby you are prevented
from passing over the road to attend to your business, or, in making
an attempt to pass, your horses get into the snow and you are put to
great trouble, expense, and loss of time in extricating them, you
are remediless unless you receive some physical injury in your
person or property; as the remedy provided by the statutes, in case
of defects in the highway, does not extend to expenses or loss of
time unless they are incident to such physical injury. In other
words, the statute gives no one a claim for damages sustained in
consequence of inability to use a road.[113] And so a town or city is
not obliged to light the highways, and an omission to do so is not a
defect in the way for which it is liable.[114]

[113] 13 Met. 297; 6 Cush. 141.

[114] 136 Mass. 419.

Nor is the mere narrowness and crookedness of a road a defect within
the meaning of the statutes. Towns and cities are only required to
keep highways in suitable repair as they are located by the public
authorities, and they have no right to go outside the limits defined
by the location in order to make the road more safe and convenient
for travel. If a highway is so narrow or crooked as to be unsafe,
the proper remedy is by an application to the county commissioners
to widen or straighten it.[115] Nor is smooth and slippery ice, in
country road or city street, a defect for which a town or city is
liable, if the road whereon the ice accumulates is reasonably level
and well constructed. In our climate the forma