up his accounts against the January Sessions, or perhaps in defending actions grounded on some irregularity in the notice, the due publication of which, or of the respective defaults, not one in fifty of them is ever prepared to prove. When January comes, his account is passed and he pays the balance to the new surveyor, who will have just the same difficulties to encounter as his predecessor. (p. 30) Everyone knows that the highways shall be kept in repair by the several parishes of which they are part. Act 2 & 3 P. & M., c. 8, has established a form of proceeding by way of indictment against the parishioners, upon which, if the defendants are found guilty, they shall not be discharged by submitting to a fine, but a distraint shall go in infinitum till they repair. (p. 31) Act 5 Eliz., c. 13, prescribes another method of proceeding-in effect much the same as that of an indictment-which is by a presentment of the surveyors to the next Justice, who is to certify the same at the next General Sessions, and the Sessions is immediately to inquire of the defaulters. But, despite the word "immediately," the general opinion on that clause of the statute is, that the certificate of the Justice in this case has not the effect of a presentment, but must be turned into an indictment, to which, by the Rules of Law, the offender may enter his traverse, and no trial can be had till the Sessions after. Both these methods are objectionable. In the first, the law does not distinguish those who have done from those who have refused to do their statute work; but gives its judgment indiscriminately against the whole parish, and hence the innocent and the guilty are involved in the same punishment. By the second, there is not that expeditious justice which the statute gives reason to expect. (p. 33) The delay and expense of these methods of proceeding are objections common to them both; and because of these reasons, as well as their inefficacy, they should either be abolished or so regulated as to be more effectual. Other complications have been introduced by Acts 22 Car. II, c. 12 (secs. 9 and 12) and 3 W. & M., c. 12 (sec. 9) in regard to what should be the mode of procedure for offences and neglects respecting the public roads. (p. 34) Besides all this, Act 1 Geo. I, stat. 2, c. 52, is so worded that it seems doubtful whether all the authority given by former Acts as to these matters is not taken away, and the jurisdiction vested in the Special Sessions. (p. 36) A surveyor, if he is a farmer, or engaged in some other like occupation, is very often ignorant of how the roads should be amended. What effects can we expect to follow from ignorance combined with authority on the one side (i.e., the surveyor) and invincible obstinacy on the other (i.e., the parishioners)? (p. 37) But the surveyors in general are not disposed to follow the law in executing their office. One error they usually make is to consider the respective forfeitures for every day's default as a tax or rate; in consequence of which their practice is, as soon as they enter office, to assess (ex officio) every inhabitant a sum proportional to the labour required of him, which they proceed to collect as soon as possible like the proper officers do the poor rates. But these several sums are not due until there has been a default to perform the statute labour. In this way the surveyor is open to an action at law for the sums thus collected from the parishioners; and, further, when the notice has been so negligently given, as that its publication cannot be proved by an uninterested witness (i.e., one not liable for statute work in the parish), who can swear to the reading of it by the Clerk, it is no blame if the parishioners do not go to the roads to work. (p. 38) Surveyors also are corrupt, in commuting with parishioners for different amounts, receiving from some 5s., from others 4s., from others half-a-crown, etc., or what many of them like better, a bowl of punch. These things are punishable by a fine of £5, which the Justices in their Sessions have power to impose. Such evils and many others of like nature are largely owing to the practice of electing tradesmen, and persons in a situation necessarily dependent and subject to influence, into parochial offices. Inferior inhabitants get the offices; while the gentlemen, perhaps from contempt of an employment which requires little more than to be able to write and keep a year's accounts, or for other reasons, sit by and see the public defrauded and the law evaded. Then Hawkins quotes from Burn on Justice (under title “Highways") saying that "Most of the books are remarkably confused under this title, occasioned by a multiplicity of statutes standing unrepealed, and yet altered perhaps five or six times or oftener, by succeeding statutes." Later, Burn says that there is no uniformity of action among the surveyors, and because each has the roads under his charge for at most six days, and his successor has other schemes and notions, the roads are never the better. Hence, it is but natural that the people have a picnic on statute labour days. Why should they not, when their work would be to no purpose? District surveyors, he thinks, should be appointed, with salaries, to lay out the roads and attend and direct the work, and see that it is well done. He thinks this could be done with half the present legal maximum assessment of 6d. in the pound. Burn's objections are two in number: first, the multiplicity of the laws, and second, the ill direction of the power given by them. The latter objection can be overcome by giving that power to those who have no temptation to abuse it; but the first objection he considers very serious. (p. 43) Existing statutes relating to the amendment and repair of the highways are not fewer than twelve in number, made at different times as need required, and abounding in clauses which legal skill cannot reconcile. Clauses in older statutes have been left unrepealed, though such clauses were altered and amended by subsequent Acts; different penalties have been inflicted for the same transgression by different statutes. Thus the highway laws have so accumulated as to be a subject of universal complaint. (p. 47) Hawkins then pleads for modifying the highway laws so as to remove inconsistencies. He would reduce all into one law, so as to be effective and easy in execution. In making such a law the following points at least should be looked to: 1. The burden on the public should be proportional to their circumstances and abilities to bear it. 2. Those who use the highways most should pay most. 3. The tax on gentlemen of large personal estates, who keep coaches, chariots, etc., should be adjusted in a compound ratio of their wealth and the use they are supposed to make of the highways. 4. Surveyors should be persons of greater property than are usually appointed to that office. (p. 52) The advantages from the use of broad wheels, he says, are so apparent that it is needless to insist on them; "this is certain, that by means of them the price of carriage from York to London has been reduced forty per cent." He acknowledges that they do not succeed so well on cross-roads as on the great roads, because the former are usually so narrow as to admit of only one track. These ways should be widened, and the use of broad wheels made universal. (pp. 61-143) In these pages, he draws up a Bill to suit the ends he has in view; and if it were passed all the old laws would be repealed and their useful provisions alone embodied in the new law. APPENDIX 4 ON LETTING THE TOLLS USUALLY the tolls were farmed out, and not managed by the trustees of the road on which they were to be collected. Parliament laid down the conditions for letting the tolls, which included the following: "To prevent fraud or any undue preference in the letting thereof, the Trustees are hereby required to provide a Glass with so much sand in it as will run from One End of it to the other in One Minute; which Glass, at the Time of letting the said Tolls, shall be set upon a Table, and immediately after every Bidding the Glass shall be turned, and as soon as the Sand is run out it shall be turned again, and so for Three Times, unless some other Bidding intervenes: And if no other Person shall bid until the Sand shall have run through the Glass for Three Times, the last Bidder shall be the Farmer or Renter of the said Tolls" (Hills, History of East Grinstead, p. 158, quoting from Act 3 Geo. IV, c. 126, sec. 55). When the term for which the tolls had previously been let was near its expiration, the trustees of the turnpike trust usually announced in the newspapers of that locality that they would meet at a certain place, on a certain date, to again let the tolls of the turnpike gates which they controlled. This gave notice to those who wanted to bid for them to appear at that time. The advertisement would read something like the following, which appeared in the Shrewsbury Chronicle, Feb. 20, 1773, p. 2: Notice is hereby given that "at a meeting of the Trustees, to be held at the Guildhall (Shrewsbury), on Tuesday the 23rd instant,...the Tolls arising on the Roads leading from Shrewsbury to Preston, Brockhurst, Shawbury, and Shreyhill, in the county of Salop, will be let to the best bidder, for the term of three years, commencing the second day of March next. John Warren, Clerk to the Trustees." It was the usual rule that the man to whom the tolls were leased had to pay for the first month in advance, as an evidence of good faith on his part (v. Act 3 Geo. IV, c. 126, sec. 56). But the following advertisement shows that this was not always required, if the lessee could give other satisfactory security. In the Hereford Journal, April 20, 1803, p. 1, we find: "Hereford Turnpike Trust. Notice is hereby given, that the next Meeting of the Trustees will be held, at the City-Arms Hotel, in the City of Hereford, on Tuesday, the Third day of May next, when the tolls arising from the several Turnpike-Gates belonging to this Trust will be Let by Auction to the best Bidder, who will be required to give security, to the satisfaction of the Trustees then present, for the performance of his or their contracts. Particulars by applying to Mr. J. Coren, Clerk to the Trustees. Instead of leaving the notice in the above indefinite terms as to the price, it was common to stipulate what was the lowest amount for which the gates would be put up at auction (v. Hereford Journal, Dec. 4, 1805, p. 2; Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette, Aug. 27, 1814, p. 3); or else to give the amount for which they were let the preceding year (v. Newcastle Courant, April 16, 1774, pp. 2,3); or, in some cases, in addition to the gross revenue, to give the amount which the toll realized, clear of the expenses of collection, during the last year or term of years (v. British Volunteer and Manchester Weekly Express, April 27, 1822, p. 1; Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, Feb. 10, 1787, p. 3). It is evident that, by these means, the tolls would tend to progressively increase from year to year. Sometimes the lease would be made for only one year, or two years, or three years, or the trustees might give the lessee an option on this (v. Newcastle Courant, April 16, 1774, p. 3). The method of letting the tolls, as told by one who had seen the process (v. Fowler, Records of Old Times, pp. 18-20), well illustrates why it was that the tolls did not continuously increase. The trustees, who were mostly country gentlemen of the district, gathered at the principal inn at the county town in considerable numbers. Usually the trustees gave a guinea for each gate let, to be expended in refreshments; and as there were generally six or eight gates, there would be that number of guineas spent among about forty or fifty "pikers," as they were called, who attended, but only about six or seven of these would be bidders and lessees; these were men of capital, who rarely collected their own tolls. Those who witnessed these meetings called them the "Whispering Society," as the company scattered about the inn yard in small groups were in full conclave, all in whispers; one would run off and whisper to another group and return again, when they would be approached by another envoy, while circulating rapidly among them was one of the bona fide bidders, evidently making terms with several threatening opponents and promising from one to five pounds to the recipient who kept from bidding. At the appointed time, a rush was made to the auction room, where the trustees, with their clerks, treasurers, surveyors and other officers were assembled. After the conditions were read the letting commenced, but it sometimes happened that the whispering had been so effective, that not a single offer was made, to the astonishment of the trustees, who had not seen the manœuvres that had been going on in the yard for more than an hour. As no biddings were made, it was then announced that the upset price was (say) £200 for each gate, and that unless that sum were obtained the gates would be withdrawn and the trustees would put in their own collectors and farm the gates themselves. When the sum was announced, a general groan of horror went round, and the trustees were told that the offer was so outrageous it could not be listened to; that the last two years the gates had not produced more than £180 to £190, and that the lessees had lost all their wages and expenses, but if they would listen to reason a tenant could be found at £150. Suddenly some stranger to the "pikers," a decoy put up by the auctioneer, would bid £180, at which there would be a burst of indignation and outbreak of insulting by-play. By a continuous series of “card-playings,” the bidders would keep down the prices of the gates to about the £200; and very often the former lessee who had declared that he had lost so much by taking the gates for the last two years, was anxious to again have them since they had really been profitable to him. All the whispering that had taken place beforehand represented an endeavour to buy off every dangerous opponent. Many persons came down from London and elsewhere, under pretence of taking the gates, who earned a sovereign or even £3, as payment for the day's work, from the lessee, who had probably held the gates for the past two or three years and was reluctant to lose them. Other evils connected with letting the tolls are given in Pagan, Road Reform, pp. 173–6, and by James and William Macadam in Parl. Papers, 1833 (703), xv, 409, pp. 497, 555. The business of contracting to take leases of turnpikes was in many instances a very expensive one. The gentleman who took most of the gates in Buckinghamshire and some adjoining counties was a Mr Tongue, living at Manchester, and it was estimated that he had over £50,000 annually embarked in gate holdings. He retained a regular staff of collectors, who moved about from one part of the country to another as his confidential servants (Fowler, op. cit., pp. 18-20). Sometimes individuals, who were in the habit of hiring the tolls to a large amount, united into a company and leased a great number of gates, until they had from £100,000 to £200,000 a year embarked in this kind of investment. Because of this monopoly of tolls, it often happened that upon two parallel lines of road in the control of the same lessee, the one paying the lower toll would be sacrificed to the other paying the higher toll; Parl. Papers, 1833 (703), xv, 409, 'Second Report of the Lords Committee on Turnpike Returns,' p. 497; Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1835, XXIX, pp. 1183-92. APPENDIX 5 RATE OF TRAVELLING, 1750-1830 I HAVE endeavoured to bring together in the following statistical table only such data as are most authentic, and to indicate in each case the source of the information, so that it may be easily verified. It must not be thought that the matter here presented is absolutely accurate, for the writer makes no claim to such precision; as a matter of fact, it has been impossible to secure even correct distances between places, because we have no measurements of the roads which give us this information with guaranteed accuracy. Further, the changing and straightening of the roads, accompanied sometimes by slight changes in the coaching routes, would vitiate any series of mileage figures which we might have. These things I have taken into account in the computation of the mileage and it will be seen that the distance sometimes varies; for between two places the length of the road differed, according to the route taken and the straightness or crookedness of the road. The same difficulties appear with reference to time, for a day at one part of the year or with one person, did not mean the same as at another part of the year or with another person; for example, days in summer were long, while the days in winter were short. It was not until the coaches were timed by hours and minutes that we get accuracy in this particular. In some instances, the length of time required to perform a journey included the time spent at nights in the inns along the route; but we have no knowledge of how much time was thus consumed. With all these liabilities to error, and others which we need not here mention, it will be apparent that the best we can get is an approximation to the truth. The great amount of statistical material presented is intended to avoid any errors due to paucity of data upon which conclusions might be based; and, making all due allowance for these variations, it is claimed that the statistics are as reliable as the available information will permit. The inferences drawn from them will be found in the text. |