until a few months ago, one of its chief beauties,
is a huge brick-field several acres in extent—in
short, the common is being rapidly reduced to
the condition attributed to it by the detractors
advocating its enclosure, and, unless steps be
speedily taken for its protection, London will
soon lose a magnificent natural park which no
expenditure of public money could replace. In
the midst of the piles of rubbish and the
manure-heaps are boards, saying that it is only
by permission of the lord of the manor that
anything is deposited there; the workmen
engaged in making the road impassable tell you
they are improving it and "makin' it more
leveller;" those engaged in the brick-field say
that the clay they dig is destined for drain-
pipes and bricks to free the common from
damp, and to build the lord of the manor a
house. Thus, every injury is plausibly spoken
of as a public benefit, and matters have been
so ingeniously arranged that the daring people
who thwarted the lord of the manor's scheme
are punished by having their beloved common
rendered a dreary waste, while any attempt
to restrain the encroachers, or to resent the
injuries being inflicted daily, can be met by
uplifted hands and loud protestations against
the unreasonableness of men who would not have
roads improved, or a common drained. It is
difficult to plausibly account for the rubbish, so
the malignant increase of this is attributed to
the want of power of the lord of the manor; and,
in spite of our expenditure of time and money,
Wimbledon seems doomed to see her healthy
open space slip away from her, and to be reduced
to the alternative of accepting a park because
she is threatened with a desert. This is stoutly
insisted on by many as the real policy adopted,
and the ugly excrescences, the gravel-pits, the
blocked-up road, and the havoc made by the
brick-field, are all said to be portions of a deliberate
plan. The motives prompting these cruel
disfigurements are of course only known to those
responsible for them, but their disastrous effect
may be tested by any one who will take a
twenty minutes' ride from Waterloo station.
It is quite unnecessary to play the partisan, or
to decide between the respective rights of
Wimbledon, of the general public, and of the
lord of the manor. Common sense tells us that
the existing state of things is terribly unsatisfactory,
and that as the dwellers near are willing
to drain the common, and to pay for its proper
protection, they should be allowed to do so
peaceably. It is monstrous that what one man
chooses to call a public benefit, or what a
dozen other men declare to be desirable for
the nation's good, should be allowed to affect
lands over which every dweller in the metropolis
has a moral if not a legal right. Some of my
friends would have the crown buy up the
rights of lords of manors, and so obtain
indisputable possession of common lands. This,
they argue, is the only sure way of preserving
our open spaces for the public, and of effectually
stopping threatened encroachments. But
independently of the enormous expenditure of the
national funds this course would involve, and of
the tacit, and, as I think, immoral recognition
of the lords' right to enclose which it would
imply, our proceedings at Wimbledon, and
even the present state of our common, bad
as it is, seem to prove such extreme measures
to be unnecessary. The bitter annoyances
and injuries we complain of, are all said
to be inflicted for the ultimate good of the
community. The same plea was put forth for
enclosure and building; and we should be perfectly
satisfied to abide by the issue raised, and to
take the decision of any disinterested persons
on its validity. The great difficulty is, not
what is the limitation of common rights, but
how far those rights may be extinguished
through the supineness, timidity, or poverty
of those possessing them. We want to be
relieved of the responsibility of fighting an
expensive public battle with a powerful
opponent, and of being legally annoyed and
punished for presuming to be victorious. We
believe that existing rights are sufficiently
strong to keep our common open to the
public, and to preserve its natural beauty intact,
if those rights be read by the light of common
sense. We want—and "we" applies to every
one interested in the preservation of the
commons near London—a powerful champion such
as has been found in Hertfordshire, to enforce
our rights and stem the encroachments of bricks
and mortar. Here is a splendid opportunity
for any young peer wishing to prove that his
order is as useful as, and not less chivalrous than,
of old. A little determination, a little public
spirit, a little independence of those subtle social
influences which hedge in a lord, and the thing is
done. Neither great labours nor vast attainments
are required, if such a man will only be
our champion, for it needs no conjuror to say
whether the destruction, disfigurement, and
devastation, now successfully carried on at
Wimbledon be an honest way of promoting what
"the protector's" original measure termed "the
enjoyment and recreation of the inhabitants of
the parish and of the public at large."

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         VOLUME THE SEVENTEENTH