EPPING FOREST. 147 
propositions—the one that the Manors within the Forest 
were independent of one another, and that there was no 
general right on the part of the Commoners to turn 
their cattle on to the whole of the waste of the Forest , 
the other that the lords had, by custom or otherwise, the 
right of inclosing. The evidence on either side in this 
great case included all the documents connected with the 
Forest and its Manors from the earliest of times, and an 
immense amount of testimony showing the practice of 
recent years. Sir George Jessel decided against the 
lords on both points. On the question of costs he 
said, “If I am right in the view I have taken of the 
law, the Lords of Manors have taken other persons’ 
property without their consent and have appropriated it 
to their own use. They will retain under the proposed 
decree, of land covered with houses and of land inclosed 
more than twenty years ago, considerable portions ofthe 
property which they have illegally acquired. It does 
not appear to me that litigants in this position are 
entitled to any consideration as to costs. But I go 
further ; as regards the bulk of the Defendants, they 
have been parties in a litigation, in which they have 
endeavoured to support their title by a vast bulk of 
false evidence. Considering that this evidence must be 
wholly discredited, I cannot make them otherwise than 
responsible for the acts of their agents who got up that 
evidence without sufficient care, and, I think, should 
have avoided raising the issues on which they fail, if 
they had exercised more diligence and more discretion.”* 
* Glasse v. Commissioners of Sewers, L.R. 19 Eq., 137. 
K 2 
