EPPING FOREST. 147 



propositions the one that the Manors within the Forest 

 were independent of one another, and that there was no 

 general right on the part of the Commoners to turn 

 their cattle on to the whole of the waste of the Forest ; 

 the other that the lords had, by custom or otherwise, the 

 right of inclosing. The evidence on either side in this 

 great case included all the documents connected with the 

 Forest and its Manors from the earliest of times, and an 

 immense amount of testimony showing the practice of 

 recent years. Sir Greorge Jessel decided against the 

 lords on both points. On the question of costs he 

 said, " If I am right in the view I have taken of the 

 law, the Lords of Manors have taken other persons' 

 property without their consent and have appropriated it 

 to their own use. They will retain under the proposed 

 decree, of land covered with houses and of land inclosed 

 more than twenty years ago, considerable portions of the 

 property which they have illegally acquired. It does 

 not appear to me that litigants in this position are 

 entitled to any consideration as to costs. But I go 

 further ; as regards the bulk of the Defendants, they 

 have been parties in a litigation, in which they have 

 endeavoured to support their title by a vast bulk of 

 false evidence. Considering that this evidence must be 

 wholly discredited, I cannot make them otherwise than 

 responsible for the acts of their agents who got up that 

 evidence without sufficient care, and, I think, should 

 have avoided raising the issues on which they fail, if 

 they had exercised more diligence and more discretion."* 



* Glasse v. Commissioners of Sewers, L.R. 19 Eq., 137. 

 K 2 



