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ascertain whether the claimants owned or occupied half an acre of
land, which was the minimum quantity which, by the utmost stretch
of the law, we could recognise as having a right of common. The
draft Register was then made, and a copy deposited in every parish."
Lord Rookwood has pointed out that the half-acre test did not corne in
his Bill, and the Conservators have never been able to show that such a
qualification was ever required for the exercise of a right of common by
the customs and assize of the Forest. We have been told that to exercise
a right of common a man must have sufficient land to maintain his cattle
during the winter months, and more than that, the City Solicitor actually
disqualified a claimant at the last revision of the Register, at the Guildhall,
on the ground that he, the claimant, could not comply with the Fence
Month Regulation, when, as a lawyer, he ought to have known that the
Fence Month had been abolished, and, in fact, its abolition had been re-
ferred to by the Epping Forest Commissioners in their final report, dated
1st March, 1877 ; if evidence is required to convince anyone of the careless-
ness and clumsiness of the City authorities in their dealing with the poor
cottagers, such a fact is eloquent evidence indeed.
The apologists for the Conservators have endeavoured to shelter them-
selves behind the "opinion " of Sir Horace Davey, although he said nothing
whatever in defence of the half-acre qualification, but it is necessary to point
out that long before Sir Horace Davey had been consulted, the half-acre test
had been adopted by the Conservators. But the most interesting fact
about the actions of the Conservators is, that while they have been so
careful to insist that a cottager cannot exercise a right of common, unless
he hold the half-acre of land, they have themselves made a list, unknown
in law, of those cottagers who hold less than half-an-acre, but whom they
are pleased to call commoners by grace of the Conservators : that is to say,
they are so endowed, that they can make a commoner by their "grace,"
and enable him to keep his cattle during the winter months, which they
had previously said he could not do without he held the half-acre. Such
is the absurd and illogical policy of the Conservators. But even granting
that they could prove (which of course they cannot) that a man must have
the half-acre to enable him to maintain a horse or two cows during the
winter months, how can they insist that he must have half-an-acre to
maintain a pig ? In substance that is what they have said in their first
report to the Common Council. They are apparently inclined to be more
considerate to the pigs than to the cottagers !
Where are the Legal Commoners admitted under sec. 33, Sub Sec. 8 ?
That is a question which has been publicly asked on more than one
occasion, but the Conservators have been mute in the matter, they have
adopted sub section 8. but they have never given the name of a single
cottager who has been permitted to exercise the right of common of
pasture under that sub section. The Register gives us the names of those
who are qualified as half-acre commoners, and the reeves' list, the names of
those who are commoners by grace of the Conservators, where then, are
the legal commoners admitted under the regulation of 1790? We can
only conclude that the adoption of that regulation by the Conservators,
has been a meaningless form to mislead ; if not, what is the explanation ?
Counsel's Opinion.
Mr. B. N. Buxton, and others, have frequently referred to Sir Horace
Davey's opinion as a triumphant vindication of their policy; but the
cottagers have never been dismayed by that learned lawyer's interpretation
of the law, and so we print the "opinion" for the edification of friends
and foes.