To make a digest of this whole series of enactments and the clauses repealed and re-enacted would not only tax the acumen and industry of a Parliamentary lawyer, but the result would be tedious. Let us, then, pass to the Act called, in Parliamentary jargon, “24th George II., c. 43.” This came into operation July 1st, 1752, and took off one of the six horses allowed to waggons by the Parliament of Queen Anne. No carriage or waggon drawn by more than five horses, except up steep hills, was permitted to pass through any toll-gate or toll-bar, unless the sum of twenty shillings over and above the usual tolls was paid; and any person taking off any horse from such vehicle, with intent to avoid the payment of the additional toll, was, on conviction of the offence, to forfeit £5 to the informer, who was given the right to levy a distress on the offender’s goods if he could not recover the penalty in any other way. At the same time, no waggon was to pass which weighed, with its contents, more than three tons; and weighing engines were to be provided by turnpike trustees, to see that the law was not infringed. This was a very determined Act, but those who drew it were very well satisfied that, considering the comparatively few roads already turnpiked, its meshes could not be made small enough to catch those offenders who constantly carried weights up to five tons upon the roads and yoked up ten or twelve horses to drag the enormous load. It was obvious that the only thing the waggoners had to do in order to evade the law was--risking the chance of finding the way impassable--to turn aside on nearing a turnpike and to make a circuit along parish roads where no toll-houses existed. Accordingly, those who framed the Act inserted what was intended to be a very alarming and altogether disabling clause. It was made an unlawful act to drive off in this manner into adjacent roads for the purpose of avoiding toll, and a penalty was set up for so doing. This was the forfeiting of one horse (not being the shaft or thill horse) and “all his gear and accoutrements.” This phrase for harness strikes one as being magnificent, and almost raises the sturdy Suffolk “Punch” or the Lincolnshire carthorse to the status of a military hero. No enforcement of this penalty can be found, but it is not to be supposed that it was never made, although, to be sure, the clause had loopholes sufficiently wide for the traditional coach-and-six to be easily driven through. Apart from the questionable legality of forbidding common roads to traffic, it would have needed no very able lawyer to successfully defend an offender charged with being on a bye-route “with intent to defraud” the tolls. Half a dozen sufficient explanations would have been ready. The waggoner might have missed his way; it might have been his best way--and so forth.