BANSTEAD COMMONS. 205 
destroying the pasturage of the Commons; and an 
order was made for the abatement of his inclosures. 
He was also ordered to pay the costs of the suit up to 
the hearing; but this was of no value to the plaintiffs, 
for Sir John was already a bankrupt. The Judge, how- 
ever, declined to decide, as against the mortgagees, 
whether the destruction of the surface of the Commons 
was of such a character as to warrant an injunction. 
He directed a reference to Mr. Meadows White, Q.C., 
to inquire who were the persons entitled to rights of 
common, what their rights were, and whether there was 
sufficiency of common on the waste lands for the persons 
entitled to the rights. For the purposes of this inquiry, 
the right of common for sheep was directed by the 
Judge to be taken as limited to two sheep to every acre 
of land to which the right attached. 
This was the first occasion on which, in the course 
of legal proceedings for the protection of Commons, an 
inquiry had been directed of this kind into the extent 
of the rights of common existing over the land. It 
was a course much to be deprecated, as it enormously 
increased the costs of the suit, without, as Lord Justice 
Fry, in giving judgment in the Court of Appeal, said, 
“lessening the intricacy of the arguments” used before 
the Court. It will be obvious that if the report of Mr. 
Meadows White had been adverse to the Commoners, it 
would have buoyed out the course for a future inclosure 
under the Statute of Merton. 
The proceedings before the referee were most 
lengthy and costly; they occupied forty days. The 
