THE COMMONERS' APPEAL.
Epping Forest, with its priceless benefits as a blessed breathing space
for tired London, owes its existence to-day to the rights of the Com-
moners.
It was these rights, and only these, which stood between the open
Forest and the enclosing Lords of the Manor. It was on these rights the
fight was fought and the Forest was won. Thanks, then, to the rights of
the Commoners of Epping Forest—rights the Corporation of the City of
London now threaten—the six thousand acres of our old woods belong to
the public to-day and for ever.
The public are asked to remember that long before the Corporation
raised a hand in defence of London's Woodland, some of these small
Commoners were fighting the Lords of the Manor, and were going to
prison in defence of their rights. And the public, as owners of Epping
Forest, are asked to see that these same rights are safeguarded, and that
the small Commoners are not denied their birthright at the hands of the
powerful Corporation, which acts too often as though Epping Forest was
part of its private estate.
Commoners' Defence Association,
Public Hall, Loughton.
March, 1893.