ATTACKS BY RAILWAY COMPANIES. 337 



expropriate 100 acres of Mitcliam Common for a 

 sewage farm. This was opposed by the Commons 

 Society and was ultimately withdrawn. 



In the same year the London and South- Western 

 Kail way introduced a Bill for taking a considerable 

 slice of Barnes Common, for a coal-siding. The Local 

 Board of Richmond also proposed to expropriate a part 

 of the same Common for a cemetery. Both of these 

 schemes were successfully opposed. Thenceforward 

 scarcely a year passed in which there were not several 

 schemes before Parliament for taking portions of Com- 

 mons for railways, sewage farms, or cemeteries. They 

 were uniformly resisted by the Commons Society, and 

 were almost invariably defeated. Thus Wimbledon 

 Common was saved in 1880 from a serious invasion of 

 a railway company. Epping Forest was attacked in the 

 same way, in 1880 and 1883, and on each occasion the 

 proposals were defeated. In 1883 Mr. Bryce moved 

 an amendment on the second reading of a Bill for this 

 purpose, that " the House, while expressing no opinion 

 as to the propriety of making a railway to High 

 Beech in Epping Forest, disapproves of any scheme 

 which involves the taking of any part of the surface of 

 Epping Forest, which by the Epping Forest Act, 187S, 

 was directed to be kept ' at all times uninclosed and 

 unbuilt on, as an open space for the enjoyment of 

 the public' ' This was carried by a majority of 230 to 

 82, and the Bill was rejected. In the same year the 

 Didcot, Newbury, and Southampton Railway Company 

 proposed to construct a line through the very centre of the 

 w 



