388 
Roads and Highways : their History, 
amounting to nearly half their bonded debt, and 141 trusts had 
not paid any interest for fifteen years. 
As the several trusts expire, the roads are handed over to the 
parish authorities, and the officers who had gained experience 
in their management are replaced by the ordinary highway 
surveyor. 
Whatever may have been the inconvenience of tolls, there is 
no doubt that turnpike-roads were originally well constructed, 
and have since been much better maintained than ordinary 
highways. This was chiefly due to the more responsible nature 
■of the governing body, and to the fact of their employing a 
skilled and permanent officer as surveyor of the roads. 
In South Wales, the riots, which arose from the objection 
•of the inhabitants to toll-bars, led to the adoption of a system of 
highway districts, under an engineer-officer appointed by Govern- 
ment, and resulted in the maintenance of the roads on a correct 
and uniform plan. But in England, each parish has been 
allowed to pursue its own devices ; and road-making, which 
in Telford's time began to assume the importance which it 
deserved, has since then been gradually neglected as a scientific 
pursuit. 
Under the present law the highways are placed under the care 
of the vestry of each separate parish, which delegates the duty 
of superintendence to one of the parishioners, who is elected 
annually to fill the office of surveyor, little or no regard being 
paid to his qualifications for the office. The defect of this 
system is obvious ; the length of the road in each parish is not 
sufficient to occupy the time of a paid officer, and the constant 
change of superintendents prevents the following out of any 
systematic mode of treatment. The surveyor elected this year 
may be zealous and painstaking, but he has his work to learn ; 
and however well he may fulfil his duties, all the good that he 
has done may be undone by his successor, who, with a narrow 
parsimonious view, or a wish to please some part of the parish, 
may save the funds by neglecting the roads ; or, even if he be well- 
inclined, his utter disqualification for the office may have the 
same effect. Even where the same surveyor is continued year 
after year, if he is competent — and very few are — he is con- 
trolled in all his actions by a vestry, whose apparent object is 
to keep the rates as low as possible, and who have too little 
knowledge to realise the fact that a well-done work is the most 
■economical. 
The report of the special committee, which sat as far back as 
1819, says: "There is no point upon which a more decided 
coincidence of opinion exists amongst all those who profess what 
