334 ATTACKS BY RAILWAY COMPANIES. 
House of Commons, on the second reading of the Bills 
containing them. Fortunately, the Society had within 
its ranks several members of Parliament, who were 
willing to undertake this task—one which in its in- 
ception was invidious, as the course was a novel one, 
and the House was unwilling to debate private Bills, 
before referring them to Select Committees. It was 
felt, however, that questions of public welfare were 
far better dealt) with in the full light of the whole 
House, than in Committees where the railway com- 
panies were represented by the ablest counsel of the. 
day, and where public interests as a rule had been 
disregarded or not protected. 
In the first three years after the constitution of the 
Society, it resisted and defeated three or four schemes 
of railway companies for invading London Commons, 
notably cases for intersecting Barnes Common, Hamp- 
stead Heath and Mitcham Common. It also defeated 
a proposal of the Kingston Corporation to take 100 
acres of Wimbledon Common for a sewage farm. It 
was hoped that these cases had given a lesson to 
promoters, and for some few years there was no serious 
attack on the London Commons. By 1577 the lesson 
appeared to have been forgotten, and several proposals 
came before Parliament involving grave injury to Com- 
mons by railways and other schemes. 
One difficulty which occurred arose from the fact that 
it was by mere chance that information was obtained as 
to whether, in any year, the multitudinous Private Bills 
before Parliament, with schemes for every part of the 
