CONCLUSION. 465 



experience of what these roads were before high- 

 way boards were formed, now more than twenty- 

 years since. 



The abolition of the turnpikes, combining the main 

 roads with the parochial highways, and then the 

 contribution from the Consolidated Fund of some 

 portion of the expenses of maintaining the main 

 roads, renders the pecuniary result to that heavily 

 burthened individual so extensively known as the 

 ratepayer, an arithijjetical question of considerable 

 nicety. Eates are now made for so many purposes 

 besides poor, highway, and church rates, which used 

 to comprise all those for which they were levied in 

 strictly rural districts, that one can scarcely wonder 

 that many people show very great repugnance to 

 paying them, consoling themselves with the only 

 available resource they have for giving vent to their 

 feelings by abusing the unfortunate collector — as if 

 he were in any way responsible for the imposition of 

 the rates ! 



I once, however, heard of a different and milder 

 course pursued by an elderly man, who, being 

 summoned before a bench of magistrates for non- 

 payment of his rate, informed them that he had 

 bought the houses to pay him a certain percentage, 

 and that if he had to pay the rates his rents would not 

 be sufficient to realize his contemplated income. It is 



30 



