Toll collector

“ With regard to inferior commodities as well as those which are to be let off free of toll, the amount of toll due shall be determined after careful consideration.
Those merchants who pass beyond the flag of the toll-house without paying the toll shall be fined eight times the amount of the toll due from them. ”

“ But, it is asserted that resort to the toll expedient is the only way to get needed high-type facilities quickly; it is the only feasible way, it is said, to raise the necessarily large cost. Now, of course, the places where the most expensive new facilities are needed most quickly, namely, within and in the near vicinity of cities, are the very places where it becomes utterly impracticable to employ the toll method. ”

“ Before railways had come, to clear the roads of most of the cattle and the waggons, the income 90of this toll-gate was considerable, but in these days it is not worth the while of the owner of these petty rights to collect the small gains, and the toll-house has been let as an ordinary cottage, but, in consideration of the tolls, at a rent slightly above its value as a dwelling. ”

“ That is a little farther, but the road is a great deal better?"
"Oh, let us go that way," cried Olive. "We will go through Uncle John's toll-gate, and you must let me pay the toll. It will be such fun to pay toll to Uncle John, or old Jane."
"Very well," said Mrs. Easterfield, "we will go that way."
When the horses had passed through Glenford and had turned their heads homeward, they clattered along at a fine rate over the smooth turnpike, and Olive was in as high spirits as they were.
"Whoever comes out to take toll," said she, "I intend to be treated as an ordinary traveler and nothing else. ”

“ Many subsequent charters granted the like, or even greater immunities from toll to favoured folk. In modern English law toll is either an incident of a franchise, as of a market or fair, or is independent of franchise. In the latter case it is claimed by prescription, as toll traverse or toll thorough, or is created by act of parliament, as in the case of turnpikes, railways, harbours, navigable rivers and canals. Toll traverse is paid for passing over a private way, bridge or ferry. No consideration need be proved. Toll thorough is paid for the use of a highway. ”

“ A consideration of the ability of people to pay tolls, as indicated by the distribution of automobile owners by income groups, and further consideration of actual fees which would be charged for specific trips over various sections of the routes, led to the conclusion that not more than about one-third of the vehicles that might use a typical free road of limited access could be regarded as potential traffic for the same road operated as a toll facility. ”

“ The Select Committee of 1819 reported that in the three preceding Sessions ninety turnpike trusts, seeking renewal of their Acts, had asked for authority to increase their tolls on the ground that they could not pay their debts without the assistance of Parliament. The alternative to an increase of tolls was carried so far that it became customary for the trusts to set up a toll-gate wherever there was the slightest excuse for so doing. ”

“ When, however, the tolls have repaid with interest the whole of the expenditure, the road or bridge should be thrown open free of toll, that it may be used also by those to whom, unless open gratuitously, it would be valueless ”

“ Bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged man, who, as he pays his toll, hands the toll-gatherer a printed card to stick upon the wall. The vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles. ”

“ At common law a toll must be reasonable. The same principle appears in various acts of parliament. The Statute of VY/est minster the First inflicts a penalty for taking excessive toll. The Railway Clauses Act 1845 provides for the equality of tolls, that is, that all persons and classes of goods shall in like circumstances be treated alike as to charges. A right of distress is incident to the right to toll, but the distress cannot be sold unless an act of parliament expressly authorizes the sale. Tolls are not rateable, unless they are appurtenant to land. ”

“ The toll-gate on the St. Foy Road was quite an important institution to the simple habitans, who paid their shilling toll for the privilege of bringing to market a bunch or two of carrots and as many turnips, with a basket of eggs, or some cabbages and onions, in a little cart drawn by a little pony, with which surprising equipage they would stand patiently all morning in St. Anne's market, under the shadow of the old ruined Jesuits' barracks, and return home contented with the three or four shillings realized from their day's traffic.
One of the specialties of the city is its rats. ”

“ A city may levy reasonable tolls in a market established by itself. A shunpike, or road constructed to facilitate evasion of tolls on a turnpike road, may be closed by injunction. The question of tolls was at one time an important one in international law. ”

“ It will be seen that the taxation of a railway line—as distinct from that of railway buildings—is, to all intents and purposes, the enforcement of a toll, on all traffic carried, for the privilege of passing through the parish concerned; while there is no suggestion, as there was in the case of turnpike roads, that those who collect the toll confer an advantage on those by whom the toll is paid. ”

“ The fact that if any surplus remains from the tolls over what is used to keep the locks in repair, and for their collection, it is to be paid into the state treasury as a part of the revenue of the state, does not change the character of the toll or impost. In prescribing the rates it would be impossible to state in advance what the tollswould amount to in the aggregate. ”

“ It must bear the large cost of toll collection. It is commonly, and almost necessarily financed with revenue bonds at interest rates inevitably higher than the rates the public would have to pay for money borrowed to create an identical free facility. It has been stated above that the standard of alternate free roads must be kept depressed for protection of the investment in a toll road. ”

“ Even in the particular instances in which traffic can be attracted to toll highways sufficient in volume to repay the costs of financing, construction and operation, we regard the toll device as an inadvisable and expensive expedient. ”

“ But when there is no existing right of property, except that which is the jus publicum, a grant of toll for its use, or passage over it, to any subject, is the franchise of toll thorough, or toll on a public highway, which is void, whether by prescription or the king's charter, unless for good consideration or reasonable recompense, which must be made to appear to have existed at the time of the grant, and to have been continued so long as toll is exacted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Higginbotham within a day or two?'
'Yes,' answered the toll-gatherer. 'He passed the gate just before you drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him through the dusk. He's been to Woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff's sale there. The old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me; but to-night, he nodded,—as if to say, 'charge my toll,'—and jogged on; for wherever he goes, he must always be at home by eight o'clock.'
'So they tell me,' said Dominicus.
'I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does,' continued the toll-gatherer. ”

“ The town is completely surrounded by toll-gates; the tolls collected do not go to pay for the maintenance of the roads, but to defray a debt incurred by removing buildings, including the ancient shambles, from the middle of the street early in the century. ”

“ Variety and number of tolls.—The variety of feudal tolls is almost inconceivable. Attempts by scholars to classify them as we should modern fees and taxes are useless, because no principle underlay the system. A French scholar has made a list of seventeen different kinds of tolls, but this is rough and incomplete. We can say in general that tolls were levied everywhere and on everything. Even a jongleur, the equivalent58 to the modern organ-grinder, could not pass the gates of Paris without making his monkey show off to pay his own way. A man had to pay toll not only when he went over a bridge ”

“ If the expectations of the parties had been realized, and the tolls mentioned in the law had produced revenue enough to preserve the road, no one, we think, would have supposed that tolls could be collected from passengers in the mail-stage, or that the specified charges upon the carriages could have been reduced, and the deficiency supplied by a toll upon persons travelling in the carriages which conveyed the mail. ”

“ Toll thorough is paid for the use of a highway. In this case, if charged by a private person, some consideration, such as repair of the highway, must be shown, as such a toll is against common right. In one case, that of the Cornish custom of tin-bounding, the right to tin tolls may depend upon custom. At common law a toll must be reasonable. ”

“ For reasons inherent in a practicable application of the toll method of financing, no toll highway can be used by all of the traffic that would be served by a highway of identical design and location operated free of toll. ”

“ To the rising generation, to whom tollgates are almost unknown, a study of the toll system affords novel entertainment, helping one to realize something of one of the most serious questions of public economics of two generations ago. Tollgates averaged one in eighteen or twenty miles in Pennsylvania, and one in ten miles in Ohio, with tolls a little higher than half the rate in Pennsylvania. ”

“ It is undisputed that if the railway companies were not carriers and acted as toll takers only, they would be entitled to claim their full tolls. But what would be the result if they put in force such a right? The carriers or forwarding agents who would replace them, naturally would, as they formerly did, levy such payments as would cover the cost of station accommodation, and all the services performed in respect of the carriage of goods beyond the mere conveyance along the railway. ”

“ Toll traverse, or a toll demanded for passing on or over the private property of the claimant, or using it in any other way, is of a different description; being founded on the right which every man has to the exclusive enjoyment of what is exclusively his private property, its use by others is a sufficient consideration for the exaction of toll. Mo. 575; 2 Wils. 299; Cowp. 47-8. But whenever toll is exacted for the passage over a public water, the nature of it changes; its foundation not being property, it rests on a grant or prescription, and if the toll is unreasonable, the grant is void. ”

“ The 4th section directed the amount of tolls, after deducting expenses, to be applied to the repairs and preservation of the road, and gave the commissioners power to increase or diminish the rates of tolls, provided that they should at no time be increased beyond the rates of toll established by an act incorporating a company to make a road from Harrisburg to Pittsburg, passed in 1806. The toll fixed by this act upon a coach and four horses was twenty cents for every five miles. ”

“ Under these circumstances, the toll pool revenues attributable to these terminals can be used as a direct subsidy to reduce local exchange rates by the amount of these attributable toll revenues.
The disallowance of CPE toll revenue requirements will also result in a reduction in toll rates equivalent to the upward pressure on local exchange rates. This occurrence does not, however, have a break-even impact on all consumers. Those consumers who make infrequent toll calls will indeed see higher total monthly telephone bills. ”

“ As the cost of the service varies in proportion to the amount of use, the toll rate is more scientific, and it has the further advantage of discouraging the unnecessary use of the instrument, which causes congestion of traffic at busy hours and also results in lines being “ engaged ” when serious business calls are made. ”

“ The toll-keeper named the place.
“That’s it!” cried the tramp, rousing up and speaking with a kind of triumphant ferocity. “That’s the place—I’m not going far past that. I’ve come to find a man out and pay a debt.”
To pay a debt!—a man who had just parted with his last penny! The toll-keeper’s suspicions were confirmed—the old man’s brain was affected ”

“ The right to demand toll, and to stop and punish passengers for refusing to pay it, is emphatically a sovereign right, and has ever been so considered amongst civilized nations. The power to erect toll-gates necessarily implies, 1st, The stoppage of the passenger until he shall pay the toll; 2d, His trial and punishment, if he should, either by force or by fraud, evade, or attempt to evade, its payment; 3d, A discretionary power as to the amount of toll; 4th, The trial and punishment of persons who may wilfully injure the road, or violate the police established upon it. ”