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their names inserted on the Register of Commoners, in accordance with
the Fourth Schedule of the Act; or to put it plainly and tersely, we ask
that the cottage commoners shall have the same rights and privileges
which are at present conceded by the Conservators to the half-acre owners
and occupiers.
The Master of the Rolls and the Regulation of 1790.
The Master of the Rolls, in referring to the regulation of the Court of
Attachments of 1790, said that that Court, first of all, gave to poor people
their full rights. This statement, coming from so eminent a judge, is an
important confirmation of the rights of all the poor people, free from the
fanciful limitation subsequently introduced by the Conservators without a
vestige of legal justification.
Here are his words :—
" The Forest Court (and I use this only for the purpose of showing
that such an idea as regulating the common in the way that common
of vicinage required, did not enter anybody's head), the Forest Court,
first of all, gave to poor people their full rights and said that no one
else should put on more than one horse or two cows for every four
pound rental; I am speaking from memory, but I think that is so. The
object of it was simply to regulate the right of common, and it was
regulated equally all round, without the slightest regard to the size of
the supposed parish commons.—(Law Journal, Equity Reports.
Commissioners of Sewers v. Glasse.)
Interpretation op the Law by the Conservators.
We have denounced their interpretation, as grossly illegal and utterly
illogical. They have always applied an illegal test to claimants who have
asked that their names should be inserted on the Register of Commoners
in accordance with the fourth schedule of the Act, and they have made an
illegal list of those commoners whom they are pleased to call "Commoners
by grace of the Conservators."
The Half-Acre Qualification.
In the first report of the Epping Forest Committee to the Court of
Common Council, presented in January 1883, we have their policy calmly
unfolded in these words :—
"Part 5.—The Commoners' Roll, and Election of Verderers.
"74. We have had other duties to perform besides those relating
to the legal questions arising out of the settlement of the Forest. The
Act provided that the Conservators should, before the 31st day of
December, 1879, make a Register of Commoners on which they
should enter the name, description, and address of every person or
body entitled to a right of common over Epping Forest, on his claiming
to be inserted thereon, and adducing reasonable proof of title, which
register was to be made in two parts, namely, Part I. for the Northern
Forest parishes, and Part II. for the Southern Forest parishes. We,
accordingly, caused a notice to be prepared and issued requiring the
owners and occupiers of land to send in their claims before the 1st
October, 1879. A very large number of claims were sent in, and from
these Mr. Solicitor prepared a Provisional List of Commoners, and had
the same printed for the purpose of being deposited and inviting
objections thereto."
"Very many of the claimants were cottagers, and the whole of the
claims were checked with the rate books of the various parishes, to