PIKES AND MILESTONES. 79 



piece of paper about the same size as a railway 

 ticket, with the name of the gate and the sidC' 

 bars which it cleared printed on it, is no longer put 

 into our hands as we travel along the road. The 

 trouble one had on arriving at the pike where the 

 ticket was to be produced or given up, to fish it up 

 out of one's pocket when one's fingers were numbed 

 with cold or one's gloves drenched with rain, used, 

 I fear, very often to cause one to give vent to any- 

 thing but blessings on turnpike tickets or pike- 

 keepers. On the other hand, some of the old pike- 

 keepers could have told you that they knew from 

 experience that boys going home from school in the 

 old yellow post-chaises carried pea-shooters, and used 

 them in passing through the pike if no stoppage was 

 necessary, or after a start had been made again, 

 totally regardless, too,, of whether the pike-keeper 

 were of the feminine gendei-. Stone-breakers by the 

 side of the road could testify to a similar experi- 

 ence, as could also various pedestrians, whose only 

 means of retaliation consisted, perhaps, in sending a 

 stone rattling against the back of the chaise, on the 

 principle of the man in the Black Country, ' 'Eave 

 'arf a brick at 'im.' 



It is a curious fact that before the principal lines 

 of railway were opened for any distance out of 

 London, and tolls had very seriously diminished. 



