The case of the remote country trusts was certainly a hard one. Like all turnpikes, they were worked under Acts of Parliament, which prescribed the amounts of tolls to be levied, and they were, further, authorised to raise money for the improvement of the roads on the security of the income arising from these taxes upon locomotion. The security of money sunk in these quasi-Government enterprises had always been considered so good that Turnpike Trust bonds and mortgages were a very favourite form of investment; but when Parliament turned a deaf ear to the bitter cry of the remote Trusts, the position of those interested in the securities began to be reconsidered. The woes of these undertakings were further added to by the action of the Post Office, which, zealous for its new mail-services, sent out emissaries to report upon the condition of the roads. The reports of these officials bore severely against the very Trusts most hardly hit by the mail-exemption, and the roads under their control were frequently indicted for being out of repair, with the result that heavy fines were inflicted. It had been suggested that as the Post Office on one hand required better roads, and on the other deprived the rural Trusts of a great part of their income, the Government should at least pay off the debts of the various turnpikes. But nothing was done; the mails continued to go free, and in the end the iniquity was perpetrated of suffering the local Turnpike Acts to lapse and the roads to be dispiked before the Trusts had paid off their loans. The greater number of Trust “securities” therefore became worthless, and the investors in them ruined. [Illustration: THE WORCESTER MAIL, 1805. _After J. A. Atkinson._ ] Mail-coaches continued to go toll-free to the very last in England, although from 1798 they had paid toll in Ireland. In Scotland, too, the Trusts were treated with tardy justice, and in 1813 an Act was passed repealing the exemption in that kingdom. But what the Post Office relinquished with one hand it took back with the other, clapping on a halfpenny additional postage for each Scotch letter. It was like the children’s game of “tit-for-tat.” But it did not end here. The Trusts raised their tolls against the mail-coaches, and smiled superior. It was then the Department’s call, and it responded by immediately taking off a number of the mails. That ended the game in favour of St. Martin’s-le-Grand. Although Parliament never repealed the exemption for the whole of the United Kingdom, it caused an estimate to be prepared of the annual cost of paying tolls, should it ever be in a mind to grant the Trusts that relief. It thus appeared, from the return made in 1812, that the cost for Scotland would have been £11,229 16s. 8d.; for England, £33,536 2s. 3d.; and for Wales, £5224 3s. 10d.: total, £49,990 2s. 9d. per annum.