24 EPPING POOREST. 



some scheme or compromise were not presently 

 devised. Under stress of this dread, and under 

 the skilful pilotage of Sir H. Sehvin Ibbetson, 

 M.P., the Act of 1878 was passed without opposi- 

 tion, and finally settled "the whole question. It 

 provided for the disafforestation of Epping Forest, 

 which is henceforth to be under the charge of the 

 Corporation of London as conservators. It is 

 therefore no longer a Royal Forest, except that 

 the Crown appoints the Ranger, in pursuance of 

 which provision the Queen has appointed His 

 Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught. The 

 deer were ordered to be transferred to the con- 

 servators, and the rights of the commoners were 

 preserved intact. It restored to the Forest the 

 whole of the lands in the hands of the lords of 

 the manors, and, with regard to those which had 

 been purchased and on portions of which houses 

 had been erected, it appointed an arbitrator. Sir 

 Arthur Hobhouse, to determine how much land 

 should be allowed to be retained in each case 

 as " curtilage " to the house, and what payment 

 should be made for it. He had also to award 

 compensation to the lords of the manors, the dis- 

 possessed grantees, and the possessors of lopping 

 rights, now put an end to for ever, and to settle 

 divers other questions. Many of these proved to 

 be of great difiiculty and delicacy, and it was only 

 after the lapse of several years and the exercise 

 of great industry and judgment, combined with 

 tact, on the part of the arbitrator, that their in- 

 tricacies were at length unravelled. The final 

 result was that 5530 acres were preserved to the 

 public. 



The management of the Forest was vested in 



