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question, determined in the most public manner to
challenge the rights of the owners of those enclosures
to keep the commoners out of them, and on the 16th
January last he knocked down the fences round
the greater portion of them. The owners of these
fences at once appealed to the Chancery Division
of the High Court of Justice for an injunction to
protect them, but by the recent amendment of the
law under the Judicature Acts, Mr. Burney, the
defendant in these proceedings, by way of counter
claim, can challenge the lawfulness of these enclosures
and hence in the course of a short time a decree may
and probably will be made declaring them unlawful.
In like manner the Corporation of London, having
had an action brought against it by one of these
enclosers, at once challenged the Plaintiff in respect
of 34 acres of land unlawfully enclosed from the
Forest which he holds.
It will thus be seen that if any attempt be made
in this Session of Parliament to give effect to the
recommendations of the Commissioners, Parliament
will be invited to step in with a strong hand and
declare that no less than 740 acres of Epping
Forest, unlawfully enclosed, is to remain enclosed
for ever, and to be held by persons who have
not a shadow of title to it as their private pro-
property, and that too in the face of decisions of
courts of law declaring those enclosures illegal, and