The Early Period in the United States. 131 
fixed a scale of maximum fees or tolls 1 which might be collected, 
and in a few cases provided for a revision and reduction of the 
same, after a certain number of years had elapsed. But the law 
fixing the fees for each ferry, bridge, or toll-road, was not lived 
up to in all cases, or was easily evaded, on account of the loose 
wording of the special acts. The result was the continuation of 
petty discriminations and annoyances of various kinds, due to 
favoritism or antagonism of the toll collecting body to different 
individuals. It was but natural that protests against these over¬ 
charges and frauds should begin to pour in upon the various 
state legislatures; for protests of this kind were not uncommon, 
even in the colonial period. In consequence, the legislatures usu¬ 
ally attempted to regulate the ferry and bridge companies, by fix¬ 
ing more detailed and elaborate schedules of rates and prescribing 
penalties for their violation . 2 But apparently the abuses con¬ 
tinued; for the laws of the period after the revolution fairly 
bristle with special enactments regulating this, that, or the 
other toll collecting company. 
The problem which those early legislatures had to solve, was 
exactly the same as the railroad problem of today, only on a 
smaller scale. The abuses of that day, as shown by the com¬ 
plaints, were in miniature the very same as the complaints 
against the railway companies at present. If history repeats 
itself, the final solution of this early problem may point to a 
similar treatment of the problem of today. 
As has been stated, the early commonwealths tried regula¬ 
tion of various kinds . 3 At first the right to establish ferry or 
post roads was, as a rule, granted by the legislature for nothing; 
soon, however, this power of issuing ferry licenses began to be 
transferred to local authorities, the legislatures prescribing the 
method and manner in which the grant should be made. Us¬ 
ually a bond for a certain amount was required for the enforce- 
1 Act, Mass., passed in 1817, Rev. Stat. , 1836, p. 338. 
2 These tolls collected by private companies were not fees. Their signifi¬ 
cance lies in the fact that they became fees when the state or municipality 
took the roads out of private hands. Sometimes, also, they became license 
fees, because the abuses practiced by the toll collecting companies led up 
to regulative legislation of this kind. 
3 Laws of New Hampshire , 1791. 
