6 ORIGIN OF COMMONS. 



might be of value for residential purposes, or for adding 

 to parks and game preserves, but which is of far greater 

 value to the public in its wild and uninclosed state, 

 contributing so much to the amenities of the districts, 

 and affording unrestricted enjoyment to the public. 



Such Commons are confined to England and Wales ; 

 they do not exist in Ireland or Scotland. All the land 

 in those countries, even where uncultivated and in- 

 capable of agricultural improvement, belongs to in- 

 dividual private owners, except so far as the recent Irish 

 and Scotch Lands Acts have conceded rights of pastur- 

 age over adjoining mountain lands. There are no 

 rights of common vested in adjoining owners, such as 

 to forbid the inclosure and fencing, of the land, and to 

 prevent the owners of the soil excluding the public from 

 it. Hence it arises that the Scotch landowners have 

 been able to turn their moors into deer forests, and to 

 prohibit the public from traversing them, or ascending 

 the hills in search of the beauties of nature and fresh 

 air. The reason is that Ireland and Scotland were 

 not subjected to the Saxon and Norman Manorial 

 systems, under which Manors, with their Lords and 

 free and copyhold tenants, were created. The change 

 from collective, tribal, or clan ownership of land to 

 individual proprietorship was made without any tran- 

 sition, such as occurred in England under the feudal 

 system. Had these countries passed through the same 

 experience, it is almost certain that the occupiers would, 

 at an early period, have been treated as the copyhold 

 tenants were in England, and have had conceded to 



