47 



In the XlVth Century London taxed all horses or carts bring- 

 ing merchandise into the city and expended the revenue m the 

 making and repair of roads leading thereto. 



I n 1 555 the first Highway Act was passed, which sanctioned 

 compulsory labour on roads, and the perishes appointed surveyors 

 to see the Act duly carried out. Later they were given power to 

 take stone for the purpose of repair within their parishes without the 

 leave of the owners. 



In the reign of Elizabeth long-waggons, which carried both 

 merchandise and passengers, came into use, but the roads were 

 broad shallow ditches strewn with loose stones. 



In Charles' II time the burden of maintenance was shifted by 

 assessment from the land-owner to every inhabitant of the district, 

 and the surveyors had power to levy tolls on all traffic passing along 

 the roads. 



During the reigns of Queen Anne, George I and George II, 

 local Acts to maintain roads by tolls were passed, but the system 

 was a failure, and a Royal Commission condemned it as open to 

 great abuse and evasion. 



With the Enclosures Acts of 1805-10 immense improvements 

 took place, as the money obtained from the sale of waste lands was 

 used to make both main and side roads, and all these had to be kept 

 in order by the parishes through which they ran. The turnpike 

 Acts of succeeding years in course of time added greatly to the 

 number and gave some 22,000 miles of good road-ways spread all 

 over the country, and during the past fifty years a more scientific 

 manner of road building introduced by Macadam and others has 

 changed the old roads with their dangers and discomforts into 

 routes which can be traversed with pleasure and ease, either on foot, 

 on horse-back, or in any wheeled vehicle. 



On the 8th April Mr. George de Castro read a 

 A Glance at short paper ent itleci " A Glance at Our Chines." 

 our Chines. Miss q Agnes Rooper, a vice-president of the 

 Society, occupied the chair. 



The reader referred to the word " Chine " as being an old 

 provincial and purely local word, only used in its geographical 

 sense here and in the Isle of Wight, and not to be found in any 

 ordinary dictionary. 



It represents a short but deep and narrow ravine gradually cut 

 in various soft strata by a small stream descending somewhat slowly 

 to the sea, its bed being formed from the debris fallen from either 

 bank, but some are rather more than that, and help to drain the 

 area between the sea-coast and the valley of the Stour. 



They all run into the sea in about the middle third of Bourne- 

 mouth Bay, and differ much in length, as also in their general 

 features which vary with the formation of the land through which 

 they have cut their way, and this gives them their individual 

 characteristics. 



Tracing the course of each separate chine from its mouth on the 

 sea-shore to its source inland, reference was made to the various 



