ATTACKS BY RAILWAY COMPANIES. 333 
Committees, to whom railway schemes were referred, 
had their attention directed to the injury done to public 
interests by the destruction of the value of Commons, 
or took any steps to protect them. To reject the whole 
of a scheme for a new line of railway, necessary for the 
advantage of the people at either end, because at one 
point it did injury to the public by intersecting a 
Common, would appear to most Committees a very 
serious responsibility. 
The Commons Society determined, at the outset 
of its proceedings, to do its utmost to oppose and 
prevent such invasions in the future, and to make 
promoters of railways understand that it was their 
interest to avoid injury to Commons, if they hoped 
to carry their schemes. Railway companies were not 
the only offenders in this direction. Local authorities 
not unfrequently cast their eyes upon open spaces, with 
a view to convert them into sewage farms,* cemeteries, 
and water works, at a cost less than would have to be 
paid for inclosed lands. It was necessary to control 
these bodies, and to enlighten local opinion as to the 
importance of restraining the authorities from doing 
permanent injury to their Commons. 
It was determined to attack such schemes in the 
* On the eve of the transfer of Lord Spencer’s rights in Wim- 
bledon Common to the public, the Wimbledon Local Board (on 
which were some prominent members of the Local Commons Preserva- 
tion Committee) proposed to acquire 300 acres of the Common for a 
sewage farm, and the proposal might probably have been carried, 
had not the Crown as a Commoner interfered by litigation to 
prevent it. 
