Toll in United Kingdom

Concept of Toll

The following is an old definition of Toll [1], a term which has several meanings:1, (verb) To bar, defeat, take away: as, to toll an entry into lands; entry tolls the statute of limitations. Tolled: removed, barred.

Alternative Meaning

(Noun)A Saxon word, originally signifying a payment in towns, markets, or fairs for goods and cattle bought and sold there. Now, popularly appUed to the charges which canal and railroad companies make for transporting goods. The legal meaning is, a tribute or custom paid for passage, not for carriage – always something taken for a liberty or privilege, not for a service; and such is the common understanding. Thus, the tolls taken by a turnpike or canal company do not include charges for transportation; such tolls are merely an excise to be paid for using the way. In common-law usage, “toll” applies to a large class of dues and exactions in the nature of fixed rights, and which cannot lawfully be exceeded. It is almost universally connected with some franchise, which involves duties as well as privileges of a public or private nature. The right to receive fixed tolls is found in fairs, markets, mills, turnpikes, ferries.bridges, and many other classes of interests where the owner of the franchise is obliged to accommodate the public and the public are protected from extortion by an obligation to pay regular dues. Neither by the common law of England, by its statutes, nor by customary usage there or in the United States, is the word limited to compensation for the use of a road, a way, a mill, or a ferry, where the moving power comes from the party using it; but, on the contrary, it is and always has been applied to compensation for such use when the thing used, and the motive power by which it was used, came from the party charging the toll, as well as when it came from the party paying it. It is, therefore, a word properly used to express the charges made by railroad companies for transportation of persons or property in the manner which is now usual, if not universal. Tollage. The sum charged as toll; also, the franchise under which the charge is made. Toll-thorough. A sum demanded for a passage through an highway, or for a passage over a ferry, bridge, etc., or for goods which pass by such a port in a river. Toll-traverse. A toll granted and claimed for going over the land of a grantee. See Bridge; Street; Turnpike.

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Notes and References

1. Meaning of Toll provided by the Anderson Dictionary of Law (1889) (Dictionary of Law consisting of Judicial Definitions and Explanations of Words, Phrases and Maxims and an Exposition of the Principles of Law: Comprising a Dictionary and Compendium of American and English Jurisprudence; William C. Anderson; T. H. Flood and Company, Law Publishers, Chicago, United States)