CHAPTER XXIII 



DECLINE OF TURNPIKES 



THE inherent defects of the turnpike system must in them- 

 selves have been fatal to its permanent continuance, irre- 

 spective of the influence of the railways, which did not kill 

 the turnpikes so much as merely give them the coup de grace. 



No one can deny the adequacy of the time that Par- 

 liament had devoted to the kindred subjects of roads and 

 waggons. By 1838 and only a few years, therefore, later 

 than the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway 

 Parliament had passed no fewer than 3800 private and local 

 turnpike Acts, and had authorised the creation in England 

 and Wales of 1116 turnpike trusts, controlling 22,000 miles 

 of road. But the whole system was hopelessly inefficient, 

 wasteful and burdensome, besides being as unsatisfactory 

 in its administration as it was in its results. 



Managed or directed by trustees and surveyors under the 

 conditions detailed in Chapter X, the actual work on the 

 turnpike roads was mainly carried out by statute labour, 

 pauper labour or labour paid for out of the tolls, out of the 

 receipts from the composition for statute duty, or, as a last 

 resource, at the direct cost of the ratepayers, who were thus 

 made responsible for the turnpike as well as for the parish 

 roads. 



Statute labour was a positive burlesque of English local 

 government. Archdeacon Plymley says in his " General View 

 of the Agriculture of Shropshire " (1803) : " There is no trick, 

 evasion or idleness that shall be deemed too mean to avoid 

 working on the road : sometimes the worst horses are sent ; 

 at others a broken cart, or a boy, or an old man past labour, 

 to fill : they are sometimes sent an hour or two too late in 

 the morning, or they leave off much sooner than the proper 

 time, unless the surveyor watch the whole day." 



In the article already quoted from the " Westminster 



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