The only other part of the statute that need now be noticed deals with the regulating of highways: it is directed that roads leading from one market town to another "shall be enlarged so that there be neither dyke, tree nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt, within two hundred foot on the one side and two hundred foot on the other side of the way": this, however, is not to apply to oaks or great trees, but if a park march with the roadway, the lord must "minish his park the space of two hundred foot from the highways, as before is said, or that he make such a wall, dyke or hedge, that offenders may not pass, nor return to do evil." The declared object of the Statute of Winchester, was, in the words of the preamble, "for to abate the power of felons," and the highway clause is said to have been designed against the depredations of bands of robbers called Drawlatches and Roberdsmen, who, concealing themselves in the thick undergrowth by the roadside, had been a terror to travellers for the last hundred years or more. If the law could have been enforced in this particular, so as to leave a clear two hundred feet both sides of the road, the result would have been admirable, but the regulation was framed on too ambitious a scale, with the result that it was generally disregarded, or at the best only partially carried out, and it is extremely unlikely that many lords minished their parks as they were ordered. It was, of course, extremely difficult to give effect to the new police system throughout England; conditions and customs varied in different districts; before the introduction of newspapers ideas spread but slowly; and people did not readily comprehend strange institutions, nor accept them, when understood, without protest. This was especially the case in the north-westerly provinces; the men of Cheshire, amongst others, were dissatisfied with the new arrangements, and petitioned the king to relieve them of the burden of maintaining so many peace officers; but Edward was not to be influenced against his judgment, by these entreaties, and answered in an abrupt manner that he would not change the law, nor revoke his statutes. The men of Shropshire and Westmoreland also, who, as it appears, had successfully evaded their obligations under the decennary system, now took it upon themselves to ignore the provisions of the Statute of Winchester; with the result that some fifteen years later, on it being brought to his notice that the regulations which he had laid down were not being properly carried out, the king ordained that "the same statute be sent again into every county to be read and proclaimed four times a year, and kept in every particular as strictly as the great charters, upon pain of incurring the penalties therein limited."