on, as a memorial both of his grandfather and of
Dickens.

CHAPTER IX.

TOLL GATES AND GATE-KEEPERS.

As this book is devoted in great measure to the mail services of old
time--which had to be carried on entirely by horse and rider or
driver--allusion may fittingly be made to the toll gate system, which
played its part in connection with mail vehicular transport.

Toll bars originated, it seems, so far back as the year 1267. They were
at first placed on the outskirts of cities and market towns, and
afterwards extended to the country generally. The tolls for coaches and
postchaises on a long journey were rather heavy, as the toll bars were
put up at no great distances from each other. In the year 1766, Turnpike
Trusts, taking advantage of Sabbatarian feeling, charged double rates on
Sundays, but experienced travellers sometimes journeyed on that day, and
submitted to the double impost, to gain the advantage of avoiding
highwaymen, who did not carry on their avocation on Sunday, but gave
themselves up to riot, conviviality, or repose.

[Illustration: BAGSTONE TURNPIKE GATE HOUSE.

GATE ABOLISHED ABOUT 1870.]

Coaches which carried H. Majesty's mails were exempted by Act of
Parliament from paying tolls. The exemption of mail coaches from paying
tolls, a relief provided by the Act of 25th George III., was really a
continuation of the old policy, by which the postboys of an earlier age,
riding on horseback, and carrying the mails on the pommel of the saddle,
had always been exempt from toll, and the light mail carts of a later
age were always exempted.

It was no great matter, one way or the other, with the Turnpike Trusts,
Mr. C.G. Harper tells us in "The Mail and Stage Coach," for the posts
were then few and far between, and the revenue almost nil; but the
advent of numerous mail coaches, running constantly and carrying
passengers, and yet contributing nothing to the maintenance of the
roads, soon became a very real grievance to those Trusts situated on the
route of the mails. In 1816 the various Turnpike Trusts approached
Parliament for a redress of these disabilities.

Mail coaches continued, however, to go free until the end of the system,
although from 1798 they had to pay toll in Ireland. In Scotland in 1813
an Act was passed repealing the exemption in that part of the kingdom.
Pack horses were superseded by huge wagons on the busiest roads early in
the eighteenth century. Over 5,000 Turnpike Acts f