IRatuce IRotes : 
tlbe Selbofne Society’s ^ll>aoa3ine 
No. 86. FEBRUARY, 1897. Vol. VIII. 
OPEN SPACES AND FOOTPATHS.* 
T is one of the errors of modern civilization to suppose 
i that an elaborate political and social machinery is a 
I potent remedy for all the woes and grievances, fancied 
or real, of mankind. But human will, individual or 
concerted, is the only motive power of this machinery, and that 
sometimes breaks down at the very time that it is most needed. 
The extensive powers now put into the hands of County, 
District and Parish Councils to resist encroachments on open 
spaces and the blocking up of rights of way, would lead us to 
hope that an Utopia had'at last been realized in these matters. 
Since the establishment of these bodies, however, the truth of 
the old proverb that one may bring the steed to the water, but 
that a thousand cannot make him drink, has been more than 
once manifest. Councillors have their own axes to grind some- 
times, and one who is interested in a footpath being obstructed, 
or a way-side strip being inclosed, will do much to influence his 
fellows towards adopting a laisser-faire policy. Others, too, who 
are members of these recently created legislative bodies err in 
ignorance, and their ideas of anything like responsibility regard- 
ing public rights are misty in the extreme. 
As the sun dispels the natural clouds, so should the luminous 
treatise of Sir Robert Hunter clear away any fogs of doubt that 
may overhang the minds of the members of the village parlia- 
ment as to what action to take when the boundaries of the 
* The Preservation of Open Spaces, and of Footpaths and other Rights of 
Way ; a Practical Treatise on the Law of the Subject. By Sir Robert Hunter, 
M.A., Solicitor to the Post Office, formerly Honorary Solicitor to the Commons 
Preservation Society. London : Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1896, roy. 8vo. Price 
7s. 6d. 
