The reason for the regulations proclaimed in 1622 and again in 1629 was set forth in the statement that the four-wheeled waggons used up to that time had, with their excessive burdens, so galled the highways and the very foundations of bridges that they had become common nuisances.
The carriers and drovers and their kind were, in 1627, forbidden to travel on Sunday, under a penalty of 20s. By the terms of this Act, which began by stating that “the Lord’s Day, commonly called Sunday,” was “much broken and profaned by carriers, waggoners, carters, wainmen, butchers, and drovers of cattle, to the great dishonour of God and reproach of religion,” any of these persons travelling or causing their servants to travel or come to their inns on Sundays could be convicted on the evidence of witnesses, or on their own confession, at any time up to six months after the commission of the offence, and the magistrates could at their discretion award one-third of the penalty to the informer and two-thirds to the poor of the parish. Thus early did the informer, who was in later years to play so important a part, come upon the scene. The notion of a conscious-stricken carrier or drover confessing to the heinous crime of travelling on Sunday is amusing.
The next intervention was that of the Sunday Trading Act of 1676, a Puritanical measure whose enactment in the licentious reign of Charles II. is still the wonder of students of social history. Had it been a measure originating with the Commonwealth, its appearance in the statute book could be readily explained, but, as matters stand, we are reduced to assuming that, although King, Court and Society might be vicious, yet Parliament, and England as a whole, were still deeply tinged with strict Sabbatarian sentiments. The Act forbade the sale or exposing for sale of any wares of merchandise whatsoever on the Sabbath day. Drovers, waggoners, horse-coursers, butchers and higglers were not to come to their inns on Sundays, under a penalty of 20s.; and no work, except works of necessity and charity, was to be undertaken. The service in private families and at inns was allowed, and meat might be dressed on that day, and milk cried before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m. But plying for hire and travelling were not then considered necessary on that day, and so enjoyed no special exemption. The cooking of meat and the selling of milk only enjoyed this Sunday franchise because milk and meat are perishable. It was this consideration that, in 1690, brought about an amendment by which the crying of that exceptionally perishable fish, mackerel, was legalised on the Sabbath.
Not a wheel wagged, therefore, on Sundays in the early days of coaching, and the tradition against Sunday travel long outlasted the legal disability; so that although mail-coaches were never a Sabbatarian institution, the stage-coaches on that day were always few while coaching lasted. The tradition was weaker on the Brighton Road than elsewhere. That was a fashionable road, and fashion has ever been irreligious, leaving the people outside its ranks to be the bulwarks of the Seventh Day. Thus we find the first Sunday coach between London and Brighton established in 1792.
The Sunday Trading Act has never been wholly repealed, and it is still possible for sour and malignant persons to intervene, under the ready cloak of religious and Sabbatarian feeling, and to lay information against shopkeepers who open on Sundays, and so cause the tobacconists, the hairdressers and newsagents, who commonly continue their business on that day, to be summoned and fined for every such offence. The Act only generally comprehended hackney-coaches, but that term included the stages, which were thus penalised until 1710, when, by the 9th of Anne, c. 23, hackney-coachmen and chairmen might ply.
It is a curious and noteworthy point about this obsolescent Act that when an information is laid the police have no optional course. They must issue a summons, while the magistrates are bound to fine offenders on their being convicted. It depends, however, upon the character and the prejudices of the bench whether the penalty may be a merely nominal one, carrying an implied disapproval of the informer’s action, or the full statutory fine of 5s. and costs. We here observe the ill which it is still possible for the common informer to work, but the great days of these gentry are gone.
Parliament, never tired of legislating for roads and vehicles, produced in course of time a strange and bewildering medley of laws, often contradictory of one another. Among these Acts, those for the regulation of waggons were the most numerous. An early curiosity of the statute book in this connection is the Act of Charles II. forbidding carters and waggoners to drive six or more horses tandem. Already, it appears, the old prohibition of four-wheeled carts or wains, in 1622 and 1629, was obsolete. Then followed an Act of William III. expressly forbidding waggon-horses being yoked in pairs; but another of the same reign withdrew this prohibition, and, in allowing pairs, limited the team to eight animals. In the succeeding reign of Anne this limit was reduced to six in pairs, except uphill, when additional horses might be yoked on. The prohibition of horses going abreast points to the extreme narrowness of the roads in many parts of the country at that time, just as its supersession by the Act permitting pairs would appear to be a result of road-widening.
To make a digest of this whole series of enactments and the clauses repealed and re-enacted would not only tax the acumen and industry of a Parliamentary lawyer, but the result would be tedious. Let us, then, pass to the Act called, in Parliamentary jargon, “24th George II., c. 43.” This came into operation July 1st, 1752, and took off one of the six horses allowed to waggons by the Parliament of Queen Anne. No carriage or waggon drawn by more than five horses, except up steep hills, was permitted to pass through any toll-gate or toll-bar, unless the sum of twenty shillings over and above the usual tolls was paid; and any person taking off any horse from such vehicle, with intent to avoid the payment of the additional toll, was, on conviction of the offence, to forfeit £5 to the informer, who was given the right to levy a distress on the offender’s goods if he could not recover the penalty in any other way. At the same time, no waggon was to pass which weighed, with its contents, more than three tons; and weighing engines were to be provided by turnpike trustees, to see that the law was not infringed. This was a very determined Act, but those who drew it were very well satisfied that, considering the comparatively few roads already turnpiked, its meshes could not be made small enough to catch those offenders who constantly carried weights up to five tons upon the roads and yoked up ten or twelve horses to drag the enormous load. It was obvious that the only thing the waggoners had to do in order to evade the law was—risking the chance of finding the way impassable—to turn aside on nearing a turnpike and to make a circuit along parish roads where no toll-houses existed. Accordingly, those who framed the Act inserted what was intended to be a very alarming and altogether disabling clause. It was made an unlawful act to drive off in this manner into adjacent roads for the purpose of avoiding toll, and a penalty was set up for so doing. This was the forfeiting of one horse (not being the shaft or thill horse) and “all his gear and accoutrements.” This phrase for harness strikes one as being magnificent, and almost raises the sturdy Suffolk “Punch” or the Lincolnshire carthorse to the status of a military hero.
No enforcement of this penalty can be found, but it is not to be supposed that it was never made, although, to be sure, the clause had loopholes sufficiently wide for the traditional coach-and-six to be easily driven through. Apart from the questionable legality of forbidding common roads to traffic, it would have needed no very able lawyer to successfully defend an offender charged with being on a bye-route “with intent to defraud” the tolls. Half a dozen sufficient explanations would have been ready. The waggoner might have missed his way; it might have been his best way—and so forth.
This Act, and others of like nature, especially exempted certain classes of waggons and carts, particularly agricultural vehicles; while his Majesty’s War Office and military commanders might use waggons carrying any weight they thought proper and drawn by as many horses as might be thought necessary. The law was, in fact, framed to protect the roads against traders, who were thought to be profiting greatly by the growth of manufactures and not contributing sufficiently to the upkeep of the roads which it was thought their excessive loads did much to wear out. The Acts had force in the country generally, but London and a radius from twenty-five to thirty miles were usually excepted.