114 THE FORESTS OF EN&LAOT>. 



disputes concerning perquisites, and the advocates of 

 ■women's rights will not be displeased that a grant was 

 made to a Mrs Howe, of the rangership of Aliceholt Forest, 

 for a term of forty-five years commencing 15th December 

 1699. Certainly she ought to have known something 

 about the duties, as her deceased husband officiated when 

 in the flesh as lieutenant of the same. But not content 

 with one-seventh part of the produce of a sale in 1729, of 

 1,170 ' dotarae' and decayed trees, which were sold by the 

 Surveyor-General for £980 (her receipt from such sale 

 being ^£140), Mrs Ruperta Howe claimed a right to the 

 lop, top, and bark. With respect to this transaction the 

 Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state and 

 condition of the Crown forests, and whose report is dated 

 25th of January 1787, remark, 'This claim having been 

 thus once admitted, it appears to have been made in one 

 shape or other at every sale since.' In the accounts of 

 the next sales in 1732 and in 1737-8, the price of the 

 trees only is accounted for to the Crown, clear of the lops, 

 tops, and oflfal wood of the said trees, the same being 

 claimed by the said Mrs Ruperta Howe by virtue of her 

 grant of the office of ranger of the said forest, and her 

 successors continued in her footsteps. But it is too 

 wearisome to pursue the subject further, as it is merely 

 the very old history of incompetent persons doing their 

 best to fill their pockets at the national expense. To 

 read the history of it, one wonders how even a fagot of 

 firewood was ever devoted to the service of the country. 

 During the eighteenth century no timber had been cut in 

 this forest prior to 1777 for the use of the Royal Navy, 

 probably owing to the trees not having till about that 

 time grown to the necessary size. A fall of 300 loads of 

 oak was then ordered by warrant from the Treasury for 

 the use of the navy, and delivered at the usual price 

 allowed for oak timber fu)'nished to the dockyards from 

 other of the royal forests, being 38s per load. It was 

 argued at the time, that if the timber had been put up 

 for sale it would have realised nearly £2,500, whereas, at 



