306 VILLAGE GREENS. 



body ever interfered, and there is no pretence of anybody inter- 

 fering with the right of recreation, if it may be called a right, 

 or amusing themselves in any way they chose, by anybody 

 who went on this piece of land, without the slightest regard to 

 the fact whether he was or was not an inhabitant of the vill 

 or hamlet of Stock well. If that be so, the case is at an end/'* 



The effect of these decisions seems to be that as a 

 great town extends, and absorbs the smaller villages 

 surrounding it, and the village greens become places of 

 enjoyment for games and recreation to a wider class of 

 persons than the inhabitants of the village, and, there- 

 fore, are more valuable, the right to play games and to 

 prevent inclosure is lost, because it can no longer be 

 averred or proved that the custom of playing games 

 thereon is confined to the inhabitants of the village. 

 The same very technical distinction between the inhabi- 

 tants of a village or parish, and those of a wider district 

 or great town, or the public generally, has operated 

 to prevent the judges drawing a legal analogy between 

 the village and its green, and London and its much- 

 frequented Commons, such as Hampstead, Hackney, 

 Blackheath, and others, however close the analogy may 

 be in fact. It has resulted that, no matter how much 

 the people of London have in the past used and enjoyed 

 any one of these Commons for games, the law does 

 not recognise that any right has grown up. 



On the other hand, so long as those Commons 

 remained open and uninclosed, there was no means 

 known to the law, by which persons roaming over them 

 * Hatnmerton v. Honey. 6, W.R., 603. 



