It is supposed that the tolls throughout England are let for more than a million and a half a-year! A saving of one half in this enormous amount would fructify in the pockets (now remarkably in need of some process of the kind) of the public, to the entire satisfaction of Rebecca and all her daughters. And yet with this evidence, of perhaps the best practical authority on the subject, before their eyes, let us see what the wiseacres of certain rural districts did to encourage economy and inland transit. By means of a tremendous instrument of tyranny called a local act, (for which the Grand Sultan would be very glad to exchange his firman,) the road trustees of various neighbourhoods have laid an embargo on all steam carriages, by enacting _intolerable_ payments. Thus on the Liverpool and Prescot road, a steam-carriage would be charged £.2, 8s.; while a loaded stage-coach would pay only four shillings! On the Bathgate road the same carriage would be charged £.1, 7s. 1d.; while a coach drawn by four horses would pay five shillings. On the Ashburnham and Totness road, steam would pay £.2; and a four-horse coach three shillings. And how did these sages settle the rates of payment? The reader would never guess, so we will tell him at once-they charged for each horse power as if the boiler contained a whole stud, all trampling the road to atoms with iron shoes; whereas they ought have let the broad-wheeled carriage go free, if, indeed, they were not called on to pay it a certain sum each journey for the benefit it did the highway. Such was the evidence that led the committee to decide, in 1834, on the practicability, the safety, and economy of running steam-carriages on common roads. It will be sufficient to give a list of the witnesses examined, to show that the highest authorities were consulted before the report was framed. They were-- Mr Goldsworthy Gurney. Walter Hancock. John Farey, civil engineer. Richard Trevethick. Davies Gilbert, M.P., president of the Royal Society. Nathanael Ogle. Alexander Gordon, civil engineer. Joseph Gibbs. Thomas Telford, president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. William A. Summers. James Stone. James Macadam, road surveyor. John Macneil, civil engineer, and Colonel Torrens, M.P.