Ireland, which was studded all over with gates on its turnpike roads, took the lead in toll-bar abolition. The roads in the s. of Ireland were the first cleared of gates; Dublin and its environs followed; and an act was passed in 1857, abolishing the whole of the remaining toll-bars; and by April 5 following, the toll-bar system, and ail its costs and charges and vexations, disappeared from Ireland. There, the supporting of the roads by land-assessment is much preferred to the defunct toll system. The Isle of Man also is overspread with excellent roads, with no tolls upon them. The financial management of roads by turnpike trustees in England and Scotland has proved eminently unsuccessful, there being some years ago a debt on the turnpike roads in England to the amount of about four millions sterling, and in Scotland, to the amount of two millions and a half.
The question of toll-bar abolition has been much agitated in England—the incon venience of the system becoming every day more sensibly felt since the introduction of railways. The efforts of the anti-toll association of London have succeeded in freeing the suburbs of the metropolis, and a considerable space on both sides of the Thames, from 153 toll-gates. In recent years, annual acts of parliament have passed in England, gradually effecting the extinction and winding up of many turnpike trusts which have been long insolvent in all parts of the country. In Scotland several attempts were made after the roads commissioners' report of 1859, to obtain a general act, compulsory or permissive, for the abolition of tolls within the kingdom. Various counties obtained
acts for themselves, for maintaining their roads and bridges by assessment on lands and heritages—the Tule usually being, that the proprietors should clear off any debt ou the roads, and that the maintenance should be divided between proprietors and tenants. The counties which obtained abolition acts, are: Aberdeen, Banff, Caithness, Cromarty. Elgin, Dumfries, Haddington, Kirkcudbright, Nairn, Peebles, Ross, and Wigton. Ar zire, Bute, Orkney, Sutherland, and Shetland never adopted the toll-bar system, but maintained their roads by assessment, or by grant from government. Special acts passed to regulate the Inverness roads in recent years. By the passing of the roads and bridges act, 1878, tolls will be altogether abolished in Scotland in 1883, and any time before then in such counties as voluntarily adopt the act, whose main provisions are similar to those adopted by the counties which had previously abolished, tolls. -Toll revenues have diminished, from the diversion of the through traffic to railways; while the chief costs, and notably that of collection, remain as great as before. Notwithstand ing the prejudices, and narrow mistaken views of personal and local interests, which continue to resist this, as they have resisted most other important reforms, the remain der of the toll-bar system must give way, and the word " toll," as applicable to col lection of moneys at gates on public roads, become obsolete.