The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1871-01-10 00:00:00

DORCHESTER PLREERS• CLUB.

The monthly meeting of this club was hold at the
King's Arum Hotel, Dorchester, last(Saturday evening.
Iho President (Mr. J. G. Homer) wits in the chair, Mr.
It Gouge, in the vies chair, and there were present Mr.
G. J. Andrews (hon. sec.), Mr. T. Chapinsn Ssunders
(treasurer), Mr. 8.. Damen, Mr. J. T. Eimer, Mr. W.
,llarke, Mr. A. Pope, Dr. Aldridge. Mr. W. Chick,
Mr. Joseph Homer, Mr. C. Jesty, Mr. J. Groves, Mr.
T. A. Houser, Mr. J. Harding, jeer., Mr. T. Chick, Mr.
E. Homer, Mr. Henry Dunning, Mr. IL Taylor, Mr. W.
Spmke, Mr. J. Parry, Mr. W. H. Dnatuse, Mr. B.
Pope, Mr. T. Look, Mr. P. Pearce, Au
It was arranged that the next meeting should be held
on February 4th, when Mr. Hddison will lecture on
Steam Cultivation. . . . . .

The PRESIDIUM said that the Secretary bad reoeived
a circular from the committee of the "French Peasant
Farmers' Seed Fund," Inviting the aid of the Club;
but he (the Chairman) did not think they oould do
anything in the matter as a body, although as individuals
they might help the French peasant farmers to get
the seed oorn they would by and bye so sadly need,

The club conett.rred.
The CideritYnw then called on ilk. Andrews to bring
forward the subject he had kindly agreed to intro-
duce, viz., the road question whion was a very impor-
tant subject to them all at the present time. oot only
in respect to the past, but with regard to what is in
prospect. Be hopes the subject would afterwards be
thoroughly discussed, and that they might get some
in.oraation on how the money now obtained for road.
was expended, sad, be hoped, some hint might be
given bow farmers were to pt the money that seemed
timely to be required is the future.
.• • • -

•
Mr. CI: J. ANDREWS, the boo. sea of the club, said—
Mr; Preddent, Vice• President, and Gentlemen, —I n obedience
to the wish expressed at • pnor meeting of thi club, that I
should give a lecture on the aubject of the Present Tendency of
Legislation in regard to the repairs of the Highways in Eng-
land, I venture now to enter upon It; but before doing no,
I must ask your forbearance should anything I may nay
',pilaw to you inappropriate or foreign to the subject in hood.
In order to understand the matter in Ita various bearings, it
will, I think, be desirable: Find—To trace the origin of High-
ways in England ; secondly, to ucertaiu the LAW! or Customs
whica provided for their making or expenses of repairing ;
and thirdly, the Property and Pomona that were liable t
illOSe expenses. Every day's experience shows that Willa• •
number of people locate themselves in a particular spot, there
must of necessity be a principal road or highway to It. Before
the Romans landed in this country (which they did at Deal,
August 27th a.c.5.5,) we do not Soil
.any mention of roads or
highways ioßagisond. But PoIICSOII in giving an account of
the Boman oocopatios, states that the roads were the tir,t
applause in the mechanism of tile Rosen 0 ',alnico it. In
Lincoln, • distant and for. rine time • poor province,
they were not constructed with the seine in *wire solidity,
as the Via Apple, or the well known real into auclent
Rome, and it was only near large towns that they
rinks! on mines or a thick bed of concrete. Generally the
materials which tame first to hand were taken, but in parts
where gravel and atonea were scores, the roads were made
ennewitat broader and higher at the top, to secure then, against
the effecta of weather. Intended primarily for war, they went
as tar as the tountry allowed with unswerving directmeas of
purpose Irons one point to another, and rather commanded
than followed the track of commerce. Made an I kept in order
by boned labour, they climbed hills which It wield have hewn
I simpler to skirt, and travailed over miwasses on piles. They
I were r•ther t.ll.O3WZrt than rondos, we make them, except for
I railways, and their transverse lines of communication were
I often thinned by tomes or ditches on each side. Their breadth
varied from eight to 24 feet in the North, and sometimes rose
to 60 feet in the great highways in the South, so says Healey
on the Roman road from Allchestar to Dorchester, (pare La
In the second century the Roman legions were pi artenal at
York. Cheater, and Cannon. The chief danger at
that time was from the restless Caledonians and the
untameable Silures. sccordingly two great r.oals connected
London with the lines of Hadrian, one going westward
to Chester, swerving salt to York, the northern Prefect's
quarters, mod thou westward to Bowsaws. lois is the four,.
Wotlingetreet, which wag one of the King's roads in the Anglo.
Saxon WOW, A second reed, afterwards Erunne&trest, went
north from London through Bedfordshire to York. A third
passed through Colchester, Cambrulgeahlre, and Lincoln,
turned ad to York, and then eastward to Use wall. Altellloll-
- whose barbarous name commemorates the Bich Waters,
connected that city, through Speen and with
Loudon. The line from Chaster to Corleon, huportun as a mili-
tary frontier, and leading through& mining district,was fringed
with Boman towns, whilst the red, aal Itykneld ways con- I
mated Lincoln and York with Bath and witu the estuary of
the Severn. By the RUI••• law every one, without distinc-
tion of degree or person, was suojeeted to contribute
to the repairs of the roads and bridges. The roals
thus inade by the ROOLLUI would appear is have beau adopted
by the Batons on their occupying Great Britain, for II 44.11
ny., that anciently there were but four highways in Bagland
which were free and common to all the King's subjects, and
in a note remarks that the' Trinoda N• 00.1•411" wnich was a
threed old necessary tax to which all landowners were liable In
Saxon times, for repairing of bridges aud roads, and maintain.
ing castles, and garrisons for defence, Le., lay on all lands in
Bagland, and that those four higimay, the work of the Romans,
were Watling-strest, Ikenild-atress, Poem and Erunue-stroat,
of which two, say the laws el Elward the Cdnfesisor (ch. IX)
extend the lengto of the kingdom, and tab the breadth, and
that they were put by thaw laws within the Knipe poace, a
privilege which was conferred on them by the 3042 chapter of
the Conqueror's laws. Having traced the origin of hignways
in Eugland, let us now see bow many kinds of such way. axial,
at thin day. kly Lord Coke says there are three —First, a foot-
way ; then, a pack and prima way, which is both • horse and
IL,otwity ; itod thirdly, • cartway, which contains the other
twos. well as a carton!, : !lad that any of such ways, which
are common to allitbe hies Kbjecte, whether it leads directly
to a market town, or only tram Lowe to town, may
ProPerlY be called • hie) fay, and that any such.
cartway moy be called the Icing's highway. Toe
law, compulsory on all, as we have seen, appears to have
been subdivided by the "Tripods Keeessitas," or three-fold
necemary tax of the Saxons The first statute lAn I subse-
quent to William (he Conqueror us Use euoject of the repairs
or ulghways, is one in lil3 (Elward 1,13, utt. 5), by which iii.
oastosnanded that hilglwe.Jo lealhog from one sweet town to
another shell be enlarged, 40 hat there be menhir dyke, tree