This Act, and others of like nature, especially exempted certain classes of waggons and carts, particularly agricultural vehicles; while his Majesty’s War Office and military commanders might use waggons carrying any weight they thought proper and drawn by as many horses as might be thought necessary. The law was, in fact, framed to protect the roads against traders, who were thought to be profiting greatly by the growth of manufactures and not contributing sufficiently to the upkeep of the roads which it was thought their excessive loads did much to wear out. The Acts had force in the country generally, but London and a radius from twenty-five to thirty miles were usually excepted. A very lengthy and severe General Turnpike Act, embodying some of the provisions already detailed, with many new ones, was that of 1766. Preambles to Acts of Parliament are generally exaggerated statements of the necessities that procured the passing of the enactments to which they sometimes afford astonishing prefaces. They are, indeed, officially so recognised, and lawyers accordingly describe them as “common form.” The preamble, however, to the Act of 1766 was an exact statement of affairs, and in saying that “the laws for the general regulation of turnpike roads are very numerous and in some respects ineffectual,” it merely set forth a commonplace of the time. For a number of years before the passing of this measure, lengthy and heated controversies had arisen on the subject of waggons and roads, and as a result it was generally conceded that wheels with narrow tyres and heavy loads cut up the highways into ruts, while broad wheels so distributed the weight that they greatly minimised that evil, or even, if they were broad enough, rolled the surface into a better condition than it was in before their passing. Inventive minds, rioting with theories not perfectly tested, went to extremes and produced extraordinary waggons with heavy iron rollers instead of wheels, which would certainly have flattened out the most rugged of roads had it been possible for horses to have moved the enormous weight. As a result of much trial, the stage-waggons of the time were constructed with wheels whose breadth ranged from six to nine inches, and such vehicles enjoyed a remission of extraordinary toll in proportion to those measurements. From 1766, then, four-wheeled waggons weighing over three tons, with wheels less than nine inches in breadth, paid 20s. over and above the ordinary toll; all over six tons, irrespective of wheels, 20s.; and two-wheeled carts over three tons, 20s.; while waggons and carts so constructed with regard to long and short axletrees to front and hind wheels that, in conjunction with the breadth of their wheels, they rolled a track of not less than sixteen inches on either side, paid only half of the ordinary toll levied upon wagons with a nine-inch breadth of wheel. These provisions may perhaps seem a little