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the land in Epping Forest which it had succeeded
in keeping open for ever by this Decree should be
used by the public for purposes of recreation
(although the public had really so used it from time
immemorial), without the Lords of Manors being com-
pensated for their interest in the soil, did that which
the Metropolitan Board of Works had refused to do,
viz., proceeded to acquire the proprietary rights from
those owners who were willing to sell them. By
agreement it has purchased 3,500 out of the 5,000 acres
of the soil remaining in the ownership of Lords of
Manors, and having obtained the necessary licences
from the Crown to hold those lands in mortmain,
they have been duly conveyed to the Corporation,
and, subject to the rights of the commoners, those
lands are open for public recreation for ever. That
the remaining 1.500 acres are not now the pro-
perty of the Corporation, does not arise from any
fault of theirs but from the fact that the owners have
been unwilling to sell them. In purchasing the lands
already referred to, the Corporation has also repaid to
the Lords of Manors such sums as they had paid for
Her Majesty's forestal rights, relying, as to the rest
of the lands where those Forestal rights still exist,
on the belief that the Lords of the Treasury will in
due time do for the Corporation that which in the
year 1864 they offered to do for the Metropolitan
Board of Works, namely, make over to the Corpora-