porates these persons by the name of "The Company of Proprietors of the Stroudwater Navigation," and empowers them to raise £20,000 amongst themselves, in two hundred shares of £100 each, and, if necessary, a further sum of £10,000, either amongst themselves, by creation of new shares, or by mortgage of the undertaking, and authorizes them to take the same tolls and rates as the undertakers under the first act of parliament were empowered to take, and which are enumerated in a foregoing part of this article. The tolls and rates to be exempted from all taxes. Fifteen years allowed to the company to complete the navigation.
No Boat of less than Twenty Tons to pass thrQugh the Locks without leave of the Company, except when the Waste Water runs over the Weir.
The act of parliament, passed in 1783 for making the Thames and Severn Canal, restrains the Stroudwater Company from taking more than 2s. 3d. per ton for coal carried on their canal, and passing to the Thames and Severn, and going thereon not more than one hundred and fifty yards above the high road at Brimscombe, and 1s. per ton only for coal going more than one hundred and fifty yards beyond such road.
TONNAGE RATES.
| For all Flint, Brick, Stone, Clay, Chalk, Salt, Ores, Salt-rock and Lime-stone, passing more than One Hundred and Fifty Yards on the Thames and Severn Canal, above the Road at Brimscombe, and carried on the Stroudwater Canal either up or down | ½d per Ton, per Mile. |
| For all Timber, Black Glass Bottles and Phials, and Crates of Pottery | 1d ditto. ditto. |
| For all Iron, Cast and Wrought, and ail other Goods, Wares and Merchandize | 1½d ditto. ditto. |
And in proportion for a greater or less Quantity or Distance.
This canal has been of infinite advantage to tile town of Stroud, and the clothing district in the neighbourhood, by furnishing them with coal at a cheap rate, and conveying their heavy and bulky goods to various markets; and from its connection with the Thames and Severn, was the means of forming the first communication by inland navigation between London and Bristol, and the counties of Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford.
SURREY (GRAND) CANAL.
(SEE [[Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/630/Grand Surrey Canal|GRAND SURREY CANAL].)
