Toll-gates were instituted on every main road between towns to tax passers-by for the upkeep of the roads, and these increased tremendously in the early nineteenth century. So much so, that they led in 1843 to that strange series of riots, known as the “Rebecca Riots,” because the rioters took the scriptural words, “And they blessed Rebekah and said, ... let thy seed possess the gate of them which hate them,” as their motto. Men, dressed as women, attacked the gates. These barriers were originally formed with a cross of two bars, armed at the end with pikes, _turning on a pin_, and fixed to prevent the passage of horses, hence their name. On many of the old highways throughout England a projecting house still shows where a turnpike gate stood, and over the door are the marks of the board on which the scale of charges was written. The twenty-seven London toll-bars were abolished in 1864, but it was not until 1889 that they disappeared in the country districts of England. What a blessing to motorists that they are gone. Little more than half a century ago railroads drove the coaches off the highways. Only within the last decade or so the conditions of London street traffic have been entirely revolutionised. But what we take to be new is in a large measure old. The steam omnibus, which is quite the latest thing of to-day (1908), is really a direct descendant of the steam coaches introduced in the time of George IV. Many efforts were made to utilise steam motors between the years 1821 and 1833. The “Enterprise,” which ran from Paddington to the City in the latter year, was remarkably like the last type just placed on the streets. Most of these were private ventures, but in spite of a Select Committee being appointed, and their verdict being, on the whole, favourable, it has practically taken the entire nineteenth century to educate people up to this mode of transit. Ten years after the Commission sat, other public steam carriages were attempted. One of them made the journey to Windsor, and was inspected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who were highly pleased with it. The motor had attained a speed of eighteen to twenty miles an hour. But it was still before its day.