THE CITY TOLL-MAN
IT is a long while since the toll-gates, which once barricaded
the approaches to the city of London proper, finally disappeared front the public ways. The localities, where they once
barred the road to the traveller who used any other means of
locomotion than those with which he was naturally provided,
are now not easily identified. It is probable, however, that
the toll-gates stood very near the spots where were the gates
of the ancient city when London was a walled capital. If so,
their sites would be indicated, though with no very great precision, by the situation on the map of Aldgate, Aldersgate,
Bishopsgate, etc., etc., in former times the gates of the old
surrounding fortification. But city walls and gates, and toll-bars too, have all been swept away by the rushing stream of
commerce; yet though the material obstacles have vanished long ago, the pecuniary one remains. Vested interests,
stronger than stone walls, endure in full vigour when these
have crumbled to decay; and from this cause it is that, though
the toll-man has been long ago turned out of house and home,
he is not yet turned out of office, but continues to levy his
exactions after he has been deprived of all semblance of authority, and of all show of right to the tax to which he
lays
claim.
The houseless and unsheltered functionary, who at the
present day represents the corporation of London in their
capacity of highway tax-gatherers, is a very forlorn-looking
individual, who has to do battle for his levies, occasionally at
a disadvantage, with any man who chooses to play the recusant; and, to say the truth, his adversaries are by no means
few. He is a man evidently born to contend with opposition,
and to get the better of it. He has in his time rubbed
shoulders with so many discomforts, that it is a question
whether he would feel at home without them. He is a
weather-worn subject, somewhat wiry-faced and hard-featured,
and with a figure thin enough almost to find shelter to leeward
of a gas-lamp, and active enough to run down a fast-trotting
horse in less time than it would take to saddle him. His occupation is no sinecure; he has to be thoroughly awake every
day and all day long. Homer may nod, but not he; unless
he choose to pay for it by the loss of income. His whole
career in office is a continuous and praiseworthy example of
"the pursuit of halfpence under difficulties." In this pursuit
he is constantly baffled, but then he is as constantly successful.
If half of his unwilling vassals elude him, the other half pay
him the hard cash; so that if he gets a grievance one minute,
he gathers compensation the next. He is liable to be cheated
every hour, and undergoes that penalty many times a day;
but he has not time to grumble, and, more than that, does not
think of grumbling, but looks the sharper after the next comer.
His occupation has taught him some practical philosophy.
He knows the value of good temper and the folly of resentments. He is a civil fellow in the main, and will answer
your questions readily enough; but you must not expect him
to look you in the face: his eyes are ever on the highway,
and if he shoots off like a rocket in the middle of a response,
it is because he has a reason for it - at least in perspective.
Sometimes, when the day has been unproductive, he will
avenge the delinquency of one defaulter by the persecution of
another - hunting him down with great pertinacity, and following him from street to street, leaving the way clear
meanwhile to all who may come. This is an imprudence,
however, of which he is seldom guilty, because it is one which
brings its immediate penalty.
The reader who would like to catch a glimpse of this active
subject must look for him in some one of the thoroughfares of
commerce, just at the point which marks the limits of the
corporation domains. If he have a map of London in which
the city proper is marked by a different colour, he will see at
a glance all the inlets and outlets which have to be guarded
and taxed by the toll-man. Thus there is one at Holborn-hill,
whose occupation can be no sinecure, seeing that he has to do
the duty of three imaginary five-barred gates, placed, one at
Shoe-lane, one at Farringdon-street, and one at Snow-hill.
There is another pluralist, who stands at the west-end of Fleet-
street, keeping one eye constantly on Temple-bar and another
on Chancery-lane. They are all authorised and enjoined to
collect twopence from the drivers of all vehicles, not belonging
to freemen of London, bringing goods into the city. The
principal city toll-man is, or was, a speculating Jew, who
rents the whole of the tolls from the corporation. He supplies his assistants with tickets, which, like turnpike tickets
elsewhere, are delivered to the drivers who pay the toll.
Whether he pays his inferiors by stated salaries, or sells them
the tickets at a discount, we are not in a condition to certify
but judging from the indefatigable efforts of some of them in
the prosecution of their profession-seeing how recklessly
they dash into the torrent of rushing vehicles, heedless of
horses' hoofs and rattling wheels, after a driver who turns a
deaf ear to their challenge - we are inclined to suspect that
they have in some way or other a personal interest in the capture of every identical
twopence. Be this as it may, the
toll-man evidently reaps no great emolument from his profession, which is far more wearisome and laborious than it is
profitable. Upon his first appointment, he is generally seen
gaping about him in a state of anxious bewilderment, half
uncertain upon whom to levy his unwelcome tax. By the
time that he has got the freemen's carts by heart, and learned
to distinguish his lawful victims, he has usually made the
discovery that his vocation is intolerably exacting, and not to
be endured. We never knew one of them stand the ordeal
many years. A man who would get through such a function
well is generally deserving of something better; and anything
is better than a perpetual tramp out-of-doors in all weathers
after flying twopences, in which he has but the merest fractional interest, if he have any at all. So it comes to pass
that he looks out for repose in some other calling; and,
mounted on the step of an omnibus as a conductor, or stuck
into a cabin reared in the mud of the Thames as pay-taker
for a penny steamer, he congratulates himself that he no longer
runs himself out of breath after the corporation coppers.
It is not easy to come at the origin of these city tolls. There
is, however, a charter granted to the mayor and citizens of
London by Henry IV., which throws some light upon the subject. This charter was bestowed in return for the loyal
assistance they rendered to the king in the matter of the conspiracy and rebellion in which his throne and life were
attempted, in the first year of his reign, by the Abbot of
Westminster, the Dukes of Albemarle, Surrey, and Exeter,
the Earls of Gloucester and Salisbury, the Bishop of Carlisle,
and Sir Thomas Blount. The conspiracy was discovered by
accident, and the rebellion in which it prematurely exploded
was quelled by the promptitude of the mayor of London,
who supplied Henry with six thousand citizens completely
armed. These were soon increased, by volunteers from the
neighbourhood, to the number of twenty thousand. The rebel
army was overthrown, and their leaders soon after taken and executed The charter, which bears date the 25th May,
1399, confers, among other privileges, upon "the said citizens, their heirs and successors, the custody as well of the
gates of Newgate and Ludgate as all other the gates and posterns of the same city." The charter, however, does not
make mention of the sums to be levied as tolls at the said
gates and posterns; and it would be absurd to suppose that
there is any prescriptive right so ancient as the charter for subjecting each vehicle to the charge of
twopence - a sum
which in those days would have purchased a joint of meat.
That those tolls have been often the pretence for fraudulent
exactions we may gather from the following record, preserved in the city memorials : - In the year 1743, one Anthony Wright brought an action against the lessee of one
of the gates, who by his plea insisted on a prescriptive right
to receive twopence for the passage of each cart laden with
goods and merchandise amounting to the weight of one ton
and upwards. It appeared, however, by the evidence, that
the usage had been to take a penny only for a cart with two
horses, however heavily laden; and a verdict was given for
the plaintiff against the lessee.
We conceive the time is not far distant when the good sense of the corporation of London will lead to the final abolition of the city tolls, which, besides being a nuisance, must
operate in some degree against the interests of commerce,
which it is to their especial advantage to promote.