290. ROADSIDE WASTES. 
regard to the road itself, yet they are clearly justified in 
removing any obstructions upon it. 
The principal case bearing on this subject, in which 
the law was clearly laid down, was that where a 
telegraph company, wishing to compete with another 
company, obtained the consent of the owners of the 
adjoining land to erect their poles on the road-side 
wastes, along the route where they desired to carry their 
wires. The obstruction caused by the poles was scarcely 
perceptible to the ordinary public. The rival company, 
however, acting ostensibly in the interests of the public, 
but really in their own interests only, with the object of 
preventing opposition, indicted the company, which 
had erected the poles, for obstructing the Queen’s 
Highway. 
In the trial which took place, Baron Martin directed 
the jury as follows:— 
“In the case of an ordinary highway, although it may be 
of a varying and unequal width, running between fences, one on 
each side, the right of passage or way, primd facie, and unless 
there be evidence to the contrary, extends to the whole space 
between the fences, and the public are entitled to the use of the 
entire of it as the highway, and are not confined to the part 
which may be metalled or kept in repair for the more convenient 
use of carriages or foot passengers. . . A permanent obstruc- 
tion created on a highway, and placed there without lawful 
authority, while rendering the way less commodious than before 
to the public, is an unlawful act, and a public nuisance at 
common law, and ‘if the jury believed that the defendants placed, 
for the purpose of profit to themselves, posts, with the object 
and intention. of keeping them there, and the posts were of 
