124 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



was not educated to the point of seeing that roads 

 shoukl be made to the measure of the traffic they 

 might be called upon to bear, rather than that the 

 build of vehicles should be altered to suit the dis- 

 abilities of the roads themselves. So, from 1766, 

 a series of Turnpike Acts began, containing clauses 

 by which narrow wheels were j^enalised and broad 

 ones relieved. Tolls were not uniform throughout 

 the country, but although those one Trust would 

 be authorised to levy might, from some special 

 circumstance, be higher than others, they ranged 

 Avithin narrow limits. Generally, a four-wheeled 

 waggon drawn by four horses, with wheels of a 

 less breadth than six inches, would pay a shilling 

 on passing a turnj^ike gate ; with wheels measuring 

 six inches broad and upwards, tbe toll would be 

 ninepence ; and with a breadth of nine inches 

 and upAvards, sixpence. Not at every gate was 

 payment of tolls made in those old days. 

 Payment made at one generally " freed " the 

 next, and sometimes others as well ; but here 

 again there was no general rule. Special cir- 

 cumstances made some trusts liberal and others 

 extremely grasping. 



A width of sixteen inches for waggon wheels 

 was very generally urged and adopted, and thus 

 it is that in old pictures of this j^eriod the great 

 wains have so clumsy an appearance, looking, 

 indeed, as though the waiuAvrights had not yet 

 learned their business, and from ignorance built 

 more solidly than the loads carried gave any 

 occasion for. 



