318 History of Inland Transport 



for the profits expected by those to whom the trustees farmed 

 the tolls, offering them by auction to the highest bidder. 

 The contractors generally had a private understanding among 

 themselves as to the terms they were prepared to give. 

 One of them, Lewis Levy by name, farmed from 400,000 

 to 500,000 of turnpike tolls within a radius of from sixty to 

 eighty miles of London ; and we may assume that he would 

 not have gone into the business on so large a scale as this 

 unless it had brought him an adequate return. 



The ultimate result of these various conditions was that the 

 sum total of the indirect taxation thus collected from the public 

 was not only great in itself, and out of all proportion to the 

 benefits received, but was inadequate to cover an expenditure 

 already swollen to abnormal proportions. In his evidence 

 before the Select Committee of 1839 Sir James McAdam stated 

 that in 1836 the gross income of the different roads was 

 1,776,586, and the expenditure for the year was 1,780,349, 

 exceeding by 3,763 the whole of the income. In Lancashire 

 alone the turnpike tolls came to 123,000 a year. 



Collection of this considerable revenue from the com- 

 munity had, of course, been duly authorised by Parliament ; 

 yet the trustees were under no obligation to account for the 

 moneys they received. Not only was there free scope given 

 for jobbery, embezzlement and malpractices in general, but 

 the turnpike commissioners could, as the " Edinburgh 

 Review " pointed out in 1819, abuse their trust andyet go on 

 levying tolls, keeping possession of the road and defying 

 complaints. The writer on " Roads " in " Rees' Cyclopaedia " 

 (1819) further declares that " either from bad management, 

 from party influence or from chicanery and ignorance of sur- 

 veyors and contractors, the roads in many places are not only 

 laid out in the most absurd direction but are so badly con- 

 structed and kept in so wretched a state of repair that they 

 are almost impassable." 



On the other hand, the great advancement in coaching, 

 and the higher speeds attained by the coaches during the first 

 three decades of the nineteenth century suggest that .the 

 improvements introduced by Telford and McAdam could not 

 have been without good effect on the chief of the main roads, 

 at least, however inefficient the making and repairing of the 

 turnpike and parish roads in general may still have remained. 



