314. REGULATION OF COMMONS. 
inserts clauses, securing to the public the right of access 
to and of walking and riding over the Commons. 
As regards Commons within the Metropolitan Police 
district, the Act of 1866 was brought into operation 
very slowly, and a large number of them still 
remain unregulated. This was due in part to the 
unwillingness of the late Metropolitan Board to adopt 
the Act, in part to the objections of the Inclosure 
Commissioners to give their sanction, where Lords of 
Manors objected to the schemes, and partly also to 
the litigation in progress, with respect to so many of the 
Commons round London, which deterred persons con- 
cerned from applying for schemes, until the Courts of 
Liaw had determined on the validity of the claims of 
the lords. 
The Metropolitan Board would not readily abandon 
their alternative plan for the purchase of the Commons 
within their area, in spite of its rejection by the 
Committee of 1565, and of the protests of the Commons 
Society. They lost no opportunity of purchasing the 
rights of Lords of Manors, often giving large sums for 
them, wholly regardless of the fact that every such pur- 
chase tended to raise the hopes and demands of other 
lords, and to encourage them in the view that they had a 
valuable property or interest to dispose of. They took 
advantage, however, of the decisions of the Judges 
against the right of the lords to inclose, and in some 
cases bought the interests of lords at very reduced 
rates as compared with their original demands. Thus 
they bought the lord’s rights over Hampstead Heath 
