See Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying; Milton's Areopagitica, his Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, treatise Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, etc.; Dr. John Owen's Indulgence and Toleration Considered; Barclay's Apol .ogy for the Quakers, prop. 14; Locke's Letters concerning Toleration, and treatise On the Conduct of the Understanding; bishop Headly's Sermons, and Dedication to Pope Clement XL; Ibbot's Boyle Lectures on the Right Duty, Benefits, and Advantages of Private Judgment; Paley's Moral Philosophy, b. 6, ch. 10; Sydney Smith's Letter to the Electors on the Catho lic Question; D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, article " Toleration;" sLiterature of Europe (Part iii. ch. 2); Whately's Essays on the Errors of Romaniem, etc.; J. Blanco White On Heresy and Orthodoxy; Brook's History of Religious Liberty; James Martineau's Rationale of Religious Inquiry; Samuel Bailey's Essays on the Formation of and On the Pursuit of Truth; Taylor's Retrospect of the Religious Life of England; idgar Taylor's Book of Rights or Constitutional Rights and Parliamentary Proceedings affecting Civil and Religious Liberty in England, from Magna Charta to the Present Time; and The Edinburgh Review, vol. 76, p. 412.—In regard to the manner in which the early Christians became liable to punishment under the Roman laws, see Neander's History of the Christ ian Religion and Church, vol. i. p. 118, Bohn's ed.; Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 16, compared with ch. 2; Dr. Taylor's Elements of Civil Law, App.
and the articles ANTONINIJS (MARCUS AURELIUS) DECIUS, and PERSECUTIONS, in the present work.
TOLL (Gr. telos, a public tax; Gr. telonian, Ltd, telonium, a toll-house; Ang.-Sax. Ger. toll, seem related to the root Ger. zahl-, Eng. Cell, to count, to pay), a payment ex acted under a royal grant, or someprescriptive usage, or by express statute; such as by the owner of a port for goods landed or shipped, by the owner of a market or fair for articles sold, or by those charged with the maintenance of roads, streets, bridges, etc., for the passage of persons, goods, or cattle. It is essential in a toll that it be for some reasonable consideration; otherwise, it is void. In modern times, the right to take toll is always created by statute, and nothing short of statutory authority will authorize its, levy, for it is a species of tax.
Many tolls receive special names, as dues, customs, etc.; and the term toll is now mostly used in connection with turnpike roads (so called from the turnpike or gate turn ing on an upright axis or pike, at which the tolls are collected) and bridges. See HIGH WAY.
The first express authorization of a road-toll on record bears date 1346, when a commission was granted by king Edward III. to lay a toll on carriages passing from St. Giles to Temple Bar, and also on carriages passing toward Portpool, now Gray's Inn Lane, London, the roads in those places having become impassable from want of other provision for their maintenance. From that small beginning, the turnpike system
gradually spread itself over all England, and latterly over Scotland and Ireland. The earliest Scottish turnpike act was passed in 1750. Previously, by statutory enactments, in 1617. 1661, and 1669, the Scottish highways were made and maintained by what is called the "statute-labor" system, under which the laboring population could be called on to give six days' work yearly upon the roads in their parishes. This poll• tax, either in the shape of personal labor, or of conversion-money in lieu of it, remained in force, in regard to all but turnpike roads, till 1845, when the general statute-labor amendment. act (8 and 9 Vict. c. 41) abolished it, and substituted assessments on land.
Beginning with 1750, turnpike roads gradually spread over Scotland, under authority of about 400 separate acts of parliament, till there was a very considerable mileage; and in Ireland the turnpike system extended over all the kingdom. According to a par liamentary report in 1840, there were in England and Wales 104,772 m. of turnpike roads: and a similar report for Scotland in 1859 gives 5,768 m. of turnpike roads in that kingdom, with 1060 toll-gates thereon. The original erection of toll-gates excited vio lent opposition in many parts of the country. and their maintenance has frequently led to popular violence and rioting.* Even those who are sensible that good roads are worth paying for at any reasonable cost, have all along felt 'the toll-system to be an annoyance and obstruction to traffic, from the continual stoppages to pay or exhibit tickets; often unjust in its application ; and unnecessarily expensive. The wasteful ness of the turnpike system is astonishing to think of. The local acts of parliament, and the constantly recurring litigation, is a serious expense, to begin with; but the chief waste is in the machinery for collecting the revenue. Besides the erection and mainte nance of toll-houses and gates (one for every 6 to 8 m.), there were, at the census of 1871, about 5,000 persons employed in England and Scotland as toll-collectors; and assuming these to be heads of families with five persons in each, there are (or were) 25,000 indi viduals to be maintained, which must absorb a high percentage of the revenue levied on the public.
Iu 1845, Mr. William Pagan of Cupar-Fife published a plan of "road reform," in which he directed public attention to the evils of the toll-bar system, and advised its dis continuance, the substitute proposed by him beina. a rate on horses, or an assessment on the lands and heritages in each county and burgh, for the support of all roads (statute labor roads included) and bridges within the respective counties and burghs.