PRESERVATION OF OPEN SPACES. 173 
under some claim of right. In this case the fight must be fought 
in the Law Courts, and it must be fought by local champions 
and with local weapons. The Open Space Societies cannot 
appear as litigants, but they all, and particularly the Com- 
mons Preservation Society, give advice and aid to the com- 
moners in such case. Secondly, commons may be inclosed" 
on the recommendation of the Board of Agriculture (Suc- 
cessors to the Inclosure Commisioners). Here the sanction 
of Parliament must be obtained, and the Commons Preserva- 
tion Society carefully watches every proposal of the kind, with 
the result, as I have already stated, that inclosure is prac- 
tically at an end. Thirdly, commons may be appropriated 
by railway companies, promoters of water-works and other 
industrial undertakings. Some years ago a railway engineer 
eagerly sought for common land in the country he had to 
traverse, and took his line through every tract of open waste he 
could find, for it was cheaper to buy such land than inclosed land. 
Many commons round London have been sliced and marred by 
railways — Wandsworth and Tooting Commons and Banstead 
Downs are notable sufferers. Wimbledon, Clapham and Hamp- 
stead have been saved from 'a like fate only by strenuous 
opposition. In those days the public generally had no notice 
of the intention to carry a line through common land ; it was 
only by accident that the proposal was discovered before it was 
too late. Now, in consequence of an alteration in the standing 
orders of Parliament — made at the instance of Mr. Shaw Lefevre 
and the Commons Preservation Society — promoters of railways 
must give notice in the London Gazette of every proposal to take 
common land. Since this change every attempt seriously to 
encroach has been defeated, and railway engineers are recog- 
nising that it is a dangerous and costly step to threaten land 
which is open to the use and enjoyment of the public. 
The principle has indeed been extended far beyond common 
land. Disused burial grounds and square gardens have been 
brought within its scope. Only this year the London and North 
Western Railway Company were defeated in an attempt to 
take part of Euston Square, and in 1889 the Midland Company 
were allowed to acquire a small piece of a burial ground at St. 
Pancras only on condition that they gave the County Council an 
equivalent in land, or in money to be spent in acquiring other 
land. Whole districts also have been protected from disfigure- 
ment by railway companies. Several attempts have been made 
to carry railways through the Lake district, but at the instance 
of the Open Space Societies they have been defeated, and similar 
protection has been accorded to the New Forest. 
This is only one instance of the broad and at the same time 
reasonable spirit in which the Open Space Societies have inter- 
preted their duties. The Commons Preservation Society, moved 
to the work and aided by the Society for the Protection of Ancient 
Buildings, a few years since defeated an endeavour to demolish 
