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In short the, raison d'etre of an Enclosure Commissioner
is to enclose, and not to keep open, commons, and if
Mr. Wood could have approached this subject free
from the bias of his daily occupation he would be some-
thing more than mortal.
Nor have lire Commissioners thus done wrong
without plenty of opportunity of doing right.
As soon as the Decree of the Master of the Eolis
had settled the rights in Epping Forest the Cor-
poration of London set to work aided by a map
of the Forest, for the purpose of sketching out a
scheme for restoring to the public all the Forest lands
to which the public were entitled, after allowing
houses, gardens and curtilages, and pleasure grounds to
remain. At a very large cost a detailed survey was
made of the Forest, and an elaborate scheme suggested
to the Commissioners, shewing every house and
garden, and curtilage that was to be allowed to
remain, with the sum which the Corporation proposed
should be assessed upon them for quieting the owners
titles. Nothing could have been easier, than for the
Commissioners to have taken up this scheme, and to
have called up in succession every owner and
occupier of a house, garden, and curtilage, and to
have heard what he had to say upon the subject,
and to have decided whether the area to be left to
him should be increased or diminished, and in like
maimer whether the sum which he was to be called upon