The Express.
London, England, 1863-02-04 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY L

Tun proposed abolition of all toll-gates within
five miles of London draws our attention to a
defect in our means of internal communication
which seems to us to require a speedy remedy.
The railway undertakings which have been carried
out almost remorselessly within the last five or six
years, the Bills for new sub-ways and iron high-
ways that are now before Parliament, remove any
delicacy which we might ever have felt about
speaking out on this subject We not only want to
see every toll-gate swept away which now stands
within five miles of London, or even in a far
broader area, but we should like to welcome a
bold, well-considered measure that would do away
with every private barrier. Whether the obstruo-
tion be a donated iron-gate in charge of a liveried
porter, which attempts to filter the traffic to and
from a particular square ; whether it is a row of
unsightly posts, like uneven teeth, which dam out
a few costermongers' barrows in a back street of
the suburbs ; whether it is a forlorn " half-
" penny hatch" which rota in pernicious
idleness in the middle of some withered high-
way, or a swinging-gate which is a popular play-
thing for the children of a crowded neighbourhood
—no matter what shape it takes, or to whom
it belongs, we wish to see it rooted out as
speedily as possible. We have no more
against the Duke of BID►oID or the Marquis of
Worrariterxx in this matter than we have spinet
some unknown Mr. Joa=n or JINKINEI who may be
the holder of a London cloister. We kno w the value
of peace and quietness as fully as the hero of a cer-
tain well-known farce ; we know how charming and
snug it is to live in a settlement, wbich is as much
like the cathedral square of a remote city as bolts
and bars can make it, although pitched in the
very heart of the metropolis. We are not blind
to the selfish advantages which may thus be en-
joyed by a select few to the manifest inconvenience
of the vulgar many. We have long felt, however,
that a city is not made for one man, or one body
of men, but for everybody whose lot may be cast
in it In much of our recent legislation this truth
has been half recognised, but only in that petty
way which shows either ignorance or timidity. No
one has been bold enough to propose the removal
of these numerous barriers on the ground that the
owners were maintaining them in defiance of allgood
citizenship and public morals. Attempts have been
made, from tune to time, to get rid of one or two
• of these obstructive gates, but nothing like a ge-
neral movement with fixed principles has been or-
ganized. We have a recollection of something like
a parochial riot about the barrier at the end of
Devonshire-place, but the local Rebmann were
defeated by the strong arm of poessesion. Other
points have been attacked in these London barri-
cades, but by troops who had neither leaders,
force, nor sustaining power.
It will not be necessary, in order to prove that we
are not fighting with shadows, to give a detailed list
of London streets which are kept under lock and
key by their private owners. Every Vestry—
every district Board of Works within the metropo-
litan limits can furnish a long catalogue of these
obstructions. A locked-up meadow, or a private
road, may be tolerated at the aide of a country
highway, or even in a country village, but certainly
not in the midst of three millions of busy people.
It wants no quotations from great authorities,
the acknowledged sources of political wisdom,
to prove that the rights of property will not mo-
rally sustain such an occupancy. If we object
to the stand-and-deliver system of collecting public
tolls, how much more strongly must we object to a 1
power which shut' a public door in our face, and
will only open it in accordance with its own pecu-
liar fanciest The uncertainty as to the hours when
these barriers may be open or may be closed, is a
fruitful source of annoyance to Londoners and
their visitors. If the owners closed them alto-
gether they could hardly injure the public more
than they do by admitting a few vehicles and
pedestrians at very uncertain specified periods.
This baronial mode of dealing with large trade
of metropolitan ground that ought, by their posi-
tion, to be thoroughfares, may seem very grand I
and feudal to many people, who affect to worship
the barbarous and the medUevaL We respect the
rights of property fully as much as these adorers
of the past, but we ass a right of property which I
they are probably blind to. This right is the
ancient right of way—the power to command the
nee at all seasons and at all hours of anything him
a road or pathway from one part of the
City to another. Nothing in the shape of
landed proprietorship, private convenience, or the
desire to preserve unnatural solitudes within a