314 REGULATION OF COMMONS. 



inserts clauses, securing to the public the right of access 

 to and of walking and riding over the Commons. 



As regards Commons within the Metropolitan Police 

 district, the Act of 1866 was brought into operation 

 very slowly, and a large number of them still 

 remain unregulated. This was due in part to the 

 unwillingness of the late Metropolitan Board to adopt 

 the Act, in part to the objections of the Inclosure 

 Commissioners to give their sanction, where Lords of 

 Manors objected to the schemes, and partly also to 

 the litigation in progress, with respect to so many of the 

 Commons round London, which deterred persons con- 

 cerned from applying for schemes, until the Courts of 

 Law had determined on the validity of the claims of 

 the lords. 



The Metropolitan Board would not readily abandon 

 their alternative plan for the purchase of the Commons 

 within their area, in spite of its rejection by the 

 Committee of 1865, and of the protests of the Commons 

 Society. They lost no opportunity of purchasing the 

 rights of Lords of Manors, often giving large sums for 

 them, wholly regardless of the fact that every such pur- 

 chase tended to raise the hopes and demands of other 

 lords, and to encourage them in the view that they had a 

 valuable property or interest to dispose of. They took 

 advautage, however, of the decisions of the Judges 

 against the right of the lords to inclose, and in some 

 cases bought the interests of lords at very reduced 

 rates as compared with their original demands. Thus 

 they bought the lord's rights over Hampstead Heath 



