CHAPTER X 



THE TURNPIKE SYSTEM 



THE fundamental principle of the turnpike system was that 

 of transferring the cost of repairing main roads from the parish 

 to the users. 



The mediaeval practice, under which the roads were main- 

 tained by religious houses, private benevolence and indi- 

 vidual landowners, had, of course, still left the common law 

 obligation that each and every parish should keep in repair 

 the roads within its own particular limits, the Act of Philip 

 and Mary, with its imposition of statute duty, being, in effect, 

 only a means for the regulation and carrying out of such 

 requirement. The parishioners were even indictable if they 

 failed to keep the roads in repair. 



But in proportion as trade and travel increased, the greater 

 became alike the need for good roads and, also, the apparent 

 injustice of requiring the residents in a particular parish to 

 do statute labour on roads, or to pay for labour thereon, less 

 in the interest of themselves and their neighbours than in that 

 of strangers, or traffic, passing through on the main road 

 from one town to another. In effect, also, whether such 

 requirement were reasonable or not, the work itself was either 

 not done at all or was done in a way that still left the roads 

 in a condition commonly described as " execrable." 



The principle that the users should pay for the main roads 

 by means of tolls was thus definitely adopted ; but the 

 obligation in regard to other than main roads still rested in 

 full with the parish. It was not, however, until the passing of 

 24 Geo. II., c. 43, that turnpike roads were mentioned as 

 distinct from " highways," this being the accepted designation 

 for roads for which the parish was responsible. When the 

 adoption of the turnpike system became more general, that 

 is to say, about the year 1767, the turnpike roads were main- 

 tained or were supposed to be maintained by tolls, and the 



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