Business of the Court Lcet, 373 



sea, and tlirougli some parts of England the people and tlieir 

 goods travelled the highways in cavalcades of pack-horses. 

 The expense of the shortest journeys was enormous, for horses 

 were dear and inferior. The imported greys of Flemish breed 

 far surpassed in strength anything bred in this country, a 

 circumstance which gave rise to the old proverb, that the grey 

 mare was the better animal.^ 



The administrative machinery of highway repairs was also 

 unsatisfactory, as we now propose to show. By the statute 2 

 and 3 P. & M. c. 1, two surveyors, bound to serve under a 

 penalty on refusal of twenty shillings, were elected each Easter 

 week to superintend the ensuing year's work. The following 

 Sunday appeared on the church door a notice appointing to 

 every labourer in the parish his four days' roadwork. Every 

 owner of a carve of land, pasture, or cart had to be there with the 

 men upon pain of paying ten shillings a day, and every house- 

 holder, cottager and labourer, not being hired servants, had 

 also to contribute eight hours' labour for a similar period. In 

 the following reign ^ the term was extended to six days, and 

 the surveyors were authorised to take materials for road re- 

 pair from stone quarries, cinder heaps, and gravel pits, etc. ; to 

 turn watercourses, scour ditches, and compel owners, under 

 penalties, to cut roadside trees and hedges, and clear ditches in 

 cases where any obstruction to the people's passage was thus 

 caused.^ Every cottager possessing goods assessed at five 

 pounds, and every owner of forty shillings in land, had to find 

 his two men to work six days. People who owned land in 

 several parishes had to find carts for each of these districts. 

 The freehold of the highway belonged to the lord of the 

 manor, but the passage for the public to the king."* This 

 circumstance constituted a title to the former of proprietary 

 rights over the roadside timber, hedges, and ditches, and also 

 a liability on him to keep such in proper order.^ The free- 



* Macaulay, Hint, of Engl., c. iii. 



2 5 Eliz. c. 13. 



3 8 Hen. VII. fol. G and 8, and 18 Eliz. c. 9. 



* G Ed. III. Way 2 ; 8 Ed. IV. fol. 9, and 27 Hen. VI. fol. 9. 

 " 8 Hen. VII. fol. 6. 



