mmon which he could not disregard,
and that they objected to its enclosure. The parliamentary committee
practically decided in their favor, and the proposition was dropped.
An important decision in a similar case was made by the courts in
1870. Berkhamstead Common, an open stretch some three miles long and
half a mile wide, lying near the town of Berkhamstead, twenty-five
miles north of London, had been used for pasturing animals, cutting
turf, digging gravel, gathering furze, and as a place of general
recreation and enjoyment by the people of the two manors in which it
lay, from time immemorial. In 1866 Lord Brownlow, the lord of these
two manors, began making enclosures upon it, erecting two iron fences
across it so as to enclose 434 acres and to separate the remainder
into two entirely distinct parts. The legal advisers of Lord Brownlow
declared that the inhabitants had no rights which would prevent him
from enclosing parts of the common, although to satisfy them he
offered to give to them the entire control over one part of it. The
Commons Preservation Society, however, advised the inhabitants
differently, and encouraged them to make a legal contest. One of their
number, Augustus Smith, a wealthy and obstinate man, a member of
Parliament, and a possessor of rights on the common both as a
freeholder and a copyholder, was induced to take action in his own
name and as a representative of other claimants of common rights. He
engaged in London a force of one hundred and twenty laborers, sent
them down at night by train, and before morning had broken down Lord
Brownlow's two miles of iron fences, on which he had spent some L5000,
and piled their sections neatly up on another part of the common. Two
lawsuits followed: one by Lord Brownlow against Mr. Smith for
trespass, the other a cross suit in the Chancery Court by Mr. Smith to
ascertain the commoner's rights, and prevent the enclosure of the
common. After a long trial the decision was given in Mr. Smith's
favor, and not only was Berkhamstead Common thus preserved as an open
space, but a precedent set for the future decision of other similar
cases. Within the years between 1866 and 1874 dispute after dispute
analogous to this arose, and decision after decision was given
declaring the illegality of enclosures by a lord of a manor where
there were claims of commoners which they still asserted and valued
and which could be used as an obstacle to enclosure. Hampstead Heath,