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