Peculiarly noxious customs clustered around the rights which feudal lords claimed for themselves in the period when the central government was powerless. The right to a wrecked ship, which had once been the prerogative of the king, could be distorted so that the whole cargo of a Regensburg ship was confiscated in 1396 because a single little cask had fallen off into the Danube. It was an accepted rule in Germany that if a wagon broke down so that the axle touched the ground it became a part of the land and belonged to the lord of the territory; break-downs must have been frequent, in view of the wretched condition of the roads, and it has been suggested that lords sought to cause them by traps and pitfalls. =70. Burden of the tolls on trade.=—The most evident effect of the tolls was the additional cost of transportation which must be paid, of course, by the consumer. The price of a ware might rise, within a comparatively short distance, so much that it could not be sold at all. It has been estimated that in the fourteenth century the Rhine tolls merely on the stretch between Bingen and Coblenz amounted to two thirds of the value of the wares. Even in the fifteenth century, and after some reform had been effected in the French tolls, the price of goods was doubled by carriage from Nantes to Orleans on the Loire or from Honfleur to Paris on the Seine. Besides the loss of money there was the loss of time; a merchant might arrive at his destination too late to find a market for his wares, or might find that they had deteriorated on the road. The monks of Beauvais took three pennyworths from each horse load that passed by, and on fast days they spent so much time in selecting their fish that the rest of the load spoiled before it reached Paris. QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 1. Make a study of the roads in your own State, noting (_a_) the extent of good and of bad roads, (_b_) the effect on transportation, (_c_) the system under which the roads are maintained, (_d_) organized attempts at improvement. Study the system of New Jersey and its effects. [Documents aiding in this study may be obtained from the Department of Agriculture, Washington, and probably from the government of your own State—apply to State Librarian for information.] 2. To what extent is river navigation practised in your State? Was it not more important before the introduction of railways? 3. Estimate the distance between the points named in the text, sect. 62, by land and by water. 4. Have we had in the U. S. in recent times any similar dangers of violence in transportation? [Read the history of gold-mining in California, in H. H. Bancroft or other available books.] 5. Robber knights in medieval Germany. [Baring-Gould, Story, chap. 22.] 6. Read the first part of Shakespeare, Henry IV, about the exploits of Prince Hal and Falstaff on the highway.