n friend Rose, playfully imagines that when he should
attain to the dignity of the ermine, he would institute the practice of
'walking' the circuit. But equestrian circuits were long in use, and the
Bar turned out as if their chase had been deer instead of John Doe and
Richard Roe. When however it came to be thought indecorous for a Judge
to wear jack-boots, the danger of wheel-carriages was sensibly felt by
the luminaries of the law, and the periodical journeys of the votaries of
Themis tended directly to the correction of ways as well as to the
suppression of vice. A zealous High Sheriff or a loyal Lord Lieutenant
would sometimes contribute out of his private purse to the security of
the Bench: and the more enterprising towns began to think it concerned
their honour that the delegates of Majesty should reach their gates
scatheless and unwearied by the toils of the road.

But road-making entrusted to the separate discretion of parochial
authorities was often performed in a slovenly, and always in an
unsystematic, manner. In adopting a direct or a circuitous line of way
innumerable predilections interfered, and parishes not rarely indulged in
acrimonious controversies, especially when the time came for walking the
boundaries. The dispute between broad and narrow gauges is indeed merely
a modern form of a long-standing quarrel. A market-town and a seaport
would naturally desire to have ample verge and room enough on their
highways for the transport of grain, hides, and timber from the interior,
and for carriage of cloth and manufactured or imported goods to the
inland. On the other hand isolated parishes would contend that driftways
were all-sufficient for their demands, and that they could house their
crops or bring their flour from the mill through the same ruts which had
served their forefathers. But in Charles II.'s reign, after the civil
wars had given an impetus to the public mind, and while, although our
foreign policy was disgraceful, and each cabinet more indecorous than its
predecessor, the country at large was steadily advancing in prosperity,
this lack of uniformity was acknowledged to be no longer tolerable.
Compulsory labour and parochial rates, or hired labour and occasional
outlays, were found alike insufficient to ensure good roads. An act was
accordingly passed authorizing a small toll to pay the needful expenses.
The turnpike-gate to which we are accustomed was originally a bar
supported on two