ON THE COST Of CARRIAGE. 757 



what the neighbourhood produced, would have found it to 

 their account, in the cost of conveyance, that the highways 

 should be kept in repair, even at their own expense. 



The cost of carriage which is illustrated in the sixth volume, 

 p. 651, is that by land and that by water, of articles in the 

 conveyance of which no particular care need be taken, of 

 articles which might take damage, of articles which required 

 great care in transmission, and of money, in which we may 

 conclude that the carrier was paid principally as a bailee. 

 The transit by water always involves some transit by land, 

 even when the vendor covenanted to ship the goods at the 

 place of departure, and sometimes it is stated that the con- 

 veyance was partly by land, and partly by water. Again, 

 it is plain that there were regular carriers by water on a 

 river like the Thames, at first as far as Burcot pier, and after- 

 wards further up the stream to Oxford, from which city, 

 in very early times, the river was navigable at least as far 

 as Lechlade. It appears too that coal barges regularly 

 plied between King's Lynn and Cambridge. The price of 

 this service is not however given, for it is clear that the Cam- 

 bridge Colleges often buy of the local dealer, who includes 

 the cost of transit in his price. Sometimes even the cost 

 of cartage into the College coal-cellar is included in the price 

 recorded. 



The mode of conveyance on the Thames is illustrated by 

 the Eton account of 1635. The College had bought its usual 

 stock of cloth for the scholars and the servants, in London, 

 and the bursar of the College states that it * came by wherry, 

 because it could not come, as usual, by barge, and that there- 

 fore it cost IO.T.' Now I conclude that the quantity of cloth 

 purchased amounted to about 2\ cut. in weight, and in 1630 

 Eton paid at the rate of is. per cwt. for hops from London, 

 though I will not assert that this particular package came 

 by water. But I should think that the carriage of hops by 

 water required as much care as the carriage of cloth, and that 

 therefore both kinds of goods would be conveyed at the same 



