The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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A.D. 1689 —1776. to enforce statute duty, but turn~ pike roads were better main- tained. 336 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM »arishes, but the machinery was too cumbersome to be very sffective. The statute duty,” which could be required from he parishioners, was perfunctorily performed, since there was not sufficient difference between the calls on large and small farmers and on large and small householders. It seemed that the most equitable system would be that “every Person ought to contribute to the Repair of Roads in Proportion to the Use they make of, or the Convenience which they receive from them.” With the view of carrying out this principle on the main lines of through traffic, turnpikes were erected and tolls? levied on certain highways, under the authority of special Acts. Precautions were also taken against injury to the roads from very heavy weights, or badly con- structed waggons®; when the wheels were so arranged as to follow one another in the same track, vehicles were freed from balf the usual tolls%. Though improvement occurred on the highways for which special Acts had been procured, the parish roads were not equally well cared for. Under these circumstances we can well understand that there should have been a great variety in the condition of the different roads; and that some should have been left in a very dangerous condition, while others were fairly good. It was in 1778 that a general measure was passed, which rendered it possible to bring all the highways of the kingdom® into the same sort of repair as had been obtained by the various bodies of commissioners for turnpike roads. That the evil was not cured immediately and that many roads were allowed to remain in a desperate condition is clear enough from the complaints made by Arthur Young®: 1 Homer, Enquiry into the Publick Roads, p. 18. 2 Arthar Young, Southern Tour, 137, 161. 8 5 Geo. I. ¢. 12; 1 Geo. IIL. ¢. 11; 14 Geo. IL. c. 42, 4 5 Geo. III. c. 38. 3 13 Geo. IIL c. 78. 8 «Of all the roads that ever disgraced this kingdom, in the very ages of barbarism none ever equalled that from Bellericay to the King's Head at Tilbury. It is for near 12 miles so narrow, that a mouse cannot pass by any carriage, I saw a fellow creep under his waggon to assist me to lift if possible my chaise over a hedge. The rutts are of an incredible depth....The trees everywhere overgrow the road, so that it is totally impervious to the sun, except at a few places: And to add to all the infamous circumstances, which concur to plague & traveller, I must not forget eternally meeting with chalk-waggons ; themselves frequently stuck fast, till a collection of them are in the same situation, that twenty or thirty horses may

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