8
capital on both sides resulted in a weak Government
passing the Grain Duty, a measure at variance with all
political and social economy ; and there is great danger
that unless the representative principle is largely intro-
duced, the Epping Forest Funds may be absorbed and
diverted from their proper purposes, like other funds
vested in corporate bodies.
I object strongly to the abstraction of six hundred
acres as a Deer Park. Keeping a large herd of Deer is
not compatible with the enjoyment of the Forest by the
public, and has many evils in its train ; as poaching
and depraving the surrounding population. By an easy-
transition, the Grain Duty goes to supply the City
with venison, a small sop being thrown to our good
Queen, who does not require it, having Deer enough
elsewhere. Fifty or sixty acres, and Deer proportionate,
say a strictly kept stock of one hundred over one year
old, should be the limit.
I object strenuously to clauses 14 and 44. They appear
to me framed to upset or avoid the decision of the
Master of the Rolls that all enclosures are utterly illegal,
and the promises made by the City Authorities that all
such enclosures except appurtenances to houses were to
be thrown open. The Commoners have been deprived
of their rights for many years; and with respect to the
sections proposed to be purchased by the City, they are
on the plan of paying the Lords of Manors about ten
times the market value of their rights, as indicated in
Clause 13. Out of this enormous and wasteful payment,
they should surely in justice compensate their Grantees;
—but these clauses appear to be in avoidance of the
clear law decisions, and to empower the City to buy the
Grantees' claims, or rights, valueless in law, by a
wasteful system of private bargains, or the dictum of a
nominee surveyor; and the Commoners are coolly shut
out from any benefit by the bargain,—as in the cass of
Mrs. Hodgson, and others. The Lands are released
from the Commoners' rights ; in which action of the
scheme there is a want of equity. Also Lords' Bushes
are incorrectly entered as enclosed, where there has
never been any pretence of legal enclosure, but merely
an attempt to intimidate strangers from entering upon