Freedom itself cannot exist without free communication,--every

limitation of movement on the part of the members of society
amounting to a positive abridgment of their personal liberty.

Hence roads, canals, and railways, by providing the greatest
possible facilities for locomotion and information, are essential

for the freedom of all classes, of the poorest as well as the
richest.

By bringing the ends of a kingdom together, they reduce the
inequalities of fortune and station, and, by equalizing the price

of commodities, to that extent they render them accessible to all.
Without their assistance, the concentrated populations of our large

towns could neither be clothed nor fed; but by their instrumentality
an immense range of country is brought as it were to their very doors,

and the sustenance and employment of large masses of people become
comparatively easy.

In the raw materials required for food, for manufactures, and for
domestic purposes, the cost of transportnecessarily forms a

considerable item; and it is clear that the more this cost can be
reduced by facilities of communication, the cheaper these articles

become, and the more they are multiplied and enter into the
consumption of the community at large.

Let any one imagine what would be the effect of closing the roads,
railways, and canals of England. The country would be brought to a

dead lock, employment would be restricted in all directions, and a
large proportion of the inhabitants concentrated in the large towns

must at certain seasons inevitablyperish of cold and hunger.
In the earlier periods of English history, roads were of comparatively

less consequence. While the population was thin and scattered,
and men lived by hunting and pastoral pursuits, the track across

the down, the heath, and the moor, sufficiently answered their purpose.
Yet even in those districts unencumbered with wood, where the first

settlements were made--as on the downs of Wiltshire, the moors of
Devonshire, and the wolds of Yorkshire--stone tracks were laid down

by the tribes between one village and another. We have given here,
a representation of one of those ancient trackways still existing

in the neighbourhood of Whitby, in Yorkshire;
[Image] Ancient Causeway, near Whitby.

and there are many of the same description to be met with in other
parts of England. In some districts they are called trackways or

ridgeways, being narrow causeways usually following the natural
ridge of the country, and probably serving in early times as local

boundaries. On Dartmoor they are constructed of stone blocks,
irregularly laid down on the surface of the ground, forming a rude

causeway of about five or six feet wide.
The Romans, with many other arts, first brought into England the

art of road-making. They thoroughly understood the value of good
roads, regarding them as the essential means for the maintenance

of their empire in the first instance, and of social prosperity in
the next. It was their roads, as well as their legions, that made

them masters of the world; and the pickaxe, not less than the sword,
was the ensign of their dominion. Wherever they went, they opened

up the communications of the countries they subdued, and the roads
which they made were among the best of their kind. They were

skilfully laid out and solidly constructed. For centuries after
the Romans left England, their roads continued to be the main

highways of internalcommunication, and their remains are to this
day to be traced in many parts of the country. Settlements were

made and towns sprang up along the old "streets;" and the numerous
Stretfords, Stratfords, and towns ending' in "le-street"

--as Ardwick-le-street, in Yorkshire, and Chester-le-street,
in Durham--mostly mark the direction of these ancient lines of road.

There are also numerous Stanfords, which were so called because they
bordered the raised military roadways of the Romans, which ran

direct between their stations.
The last-mentioned peculiarity of the roads constructed by the

Romans, must have struck many observers. Level does not seem to
have been of consequence, compared with directness. This

peculiarity is supposed to have originated in an imperfect
knowledge of mechanics; for the Romans do not appear to have been

acquainted with the moveable joint in wheeled carriages.
The carriage-body rested solid upon the axles, which in four-wheeled

vehicles were rigidlyparallel with each other. Being unable
readily to turn a bend in the road, it has been concluded that for

this reason all the great Roman highways were constructed in as
straight lines as possible.

On the departure of the Romans from Britain, most of the roads
constructed by them were allowed to fall into decay, on which the

forest and the waste gradually resumed their dominion over them,
and the highways of England became about the worst in Europe.

We find, however, that numerous attempts were made in early times
to preserve the ancient ways and enable a communication to be

maintained between the metropolis and the rest of the country,
as well as between one market town and another.

The state of the highways may be inferred from the character of
the legislation applying to them. One of the first laws on the

subject was passed in 1285, directing that all bushes and trees
along the roads leading from one market to another should be cut

down for two hundred feet on either side, to prevent robbers
lurking therein;*[1] but nothing was proposed for amending the

condition of the ways themselves. In 1346, Edward III.
authorised the first toll to be levied for the repair of the

roads leading from St. Giles's-in-the-Fields to the village of
Charing (now Charing Cross), and from the same quarter to near

Temple Bar (down Drury Lane), as well as the highway then called
Perpoole (now Gray's Inn Lane). The footway at the entrance of

Temple Bar was interrupted by thickets and bushes, and in wet
weather was almost impassable. The roads further west were so

bad that when the sovereign went to Parliament faggots were
thrown into the ruts in King-street, Westminster, to enable the

royal cavalcade to pass along.
In Henry VIII.'s reign, several remarkable statutes were passed

relating to certain worn-out and impracticable roads in Sussex and
the Weald of Kent. From the earliest of these, it would appear

that when the old roads were found too deep and miry to be passed,
they were merely abandoned and new tracks struck out. After

describing "many of the wayes in the wealds as so depe and noyous
by wearyng and course of water and other occasions that people

cannot have their carriages or passages by horses uppon or by the
same but to their great paynes, perill and jeopardie," the Act

provided that owners of land might, with the consent of two
justices and twelve discreet men of the hundred, lay out new roads

and close up the old ones. Another Act passed in the same reign,
related to the repairs of bridges and of the highways at the ends

of bridges.
But as these measures were for the most part merely permissive,

they could have had but little practical effect in improving the
communications of the kingdom. In the reign of Philip and Mary

(in 1555), an Act was passed providing that each parish should elect
two surveyors of highways to see to the maintenance of their

repairs by compulsory labour, the preamble reciting that
"highwaies are now both verie noisome and tedious to travell in,

and dangerous to all passengers and cariages;" and to this day
parish and cross roads are maintained on the principle of Mary's

Act, though the compulsory labour has since been commuted into a
compulsory tax.

In the reigns of Elizabeth and James, other road Acts were passed;
but, from the statements of contemporary writers, it would appear

that they were followed by very little substantial progress, and
travelling continued to be attended with many difficulties. Even in