ITS HISTORY.
Works, which would have given the public only a
paltry 600 acres, with leave to purchase at full
market-value 400 more, which were allotted as
compensation to the commoners, the whole of
the remaining 5000 acres being absolutely made
over to the manorial owners. I well remember
the meeting, which was held at this crisis, of the
" Commons Preservation Society," at that time
the only organised body which seemed to care for
the interests of the public. So dark was the out-
look that it was seriously debated by the com-
mittee whether this so-called compromise should
be accepted. It is not too much to say that the
fate of the Forest trembled round the table where
this committee sat. If weak-kneed counsels had
then prevailed, the Bill would probably have
passed without opposition, and the Forest, as we
know it, would have ceased to exist. Happily a
spirited policy carried the day. The Bill was
vigorously opposed, and dropped, and Mr. Cow-
per-Temple subsequently carried against the
Government an address to the Crown, calling
upon it to preserve those parts of Epping Forest
which had not been enclosed by legal authority.
The immediate result of this was the passage in
the next session of a Bill appointing a Royal
Commission to inquire into the rights of the
Forest, and prepare a scheme for its future
management.
Public attention was now fully aroused, and a
new body was formed, called the " Forest Fund
Committee," who assisted in forcing the question
to the front; but the public without a champion
is powerless. Happily in the Corporation of the
city of London a doughty one was at hand, able