The Express.
London, England, 1866-01-24 00:00:00

Tas Commons Preservation Society, after many
meetings of a more or less!prirate character, conies
fairly before the public this morning. Its aims
and objects are strictly conservative. It neither
wishes to improve nor beautify our commons, but
to maintain them as they are now ; and that all
legislation on this subject since the time of Henry
lIL has been in the direction of inclosure, or
with a view to agricultural profit, is held to prove
the necessity of some such organization as meets
to-day, under the presidency of the Lord Mayor.
As far as we understand the matter, there is no
immediate intention to propose a change in the
Is,. It is asserted that in most cases where the
lords of manors have met with a determined op-
position, they have either desiated from encroach-
ments, or have been defeated; and the existing rights
of commoners and inhabitants are believed to be
strong enough for all purposes of the Society. When,
however, a lord of the manor wishes to agree with
commoners for the extinguishment of their rights,
the Iliclosure Commissioners, who cannot authorise
inclosure of themselves, may give their sanction to
the scheme, and the bill making it legal be passed by
the House mainly through their official recommen-
dation. One of the first objects of the Commons Pre-
servation Society is, to ask the House to prohibit
these Commissioners from entertaining any applica-
tions for inclosure within the metropolitan area, and
thus to carry into effect the recommendation of the
parliamentary committee of last year.
The increase of population, and the vast in-
vasions of bricks and mortar, have altered
the conditions under which waste lands
must be viewed. The conventional hero
whose claim on posterity is for making two
blades of grass sprout where one grew before may
easily degenerate into a nuisance now-a-days. Cul-
tivatiou, nowever admirable when the country was
sparsely scattered with farms and hamlets, becomes
a positive injury when unduly fostered on the out-
skirts of great cities. Waste becomes prudent, and
a wild common more really remunerative than the
most carefully cultured and regularly plotted out
park, when it acts as safety-valve to a smoke-
dried feverish hive of workers. Still, there are
degrees even in meritorious uuproductiveness, and
it is clear that a huge patch of waffled ground
needs some responsible supervision. The mischief
proverbially found for idle hands takes the
form of dust-heaps, defective drainage, sod-cutting,
and gravel-digging, where idle land is preyed upon.
The Commons Preservation Society propose to step
in here, and to adopt such measures as will enable
the dwellers near any given common to help them-
selves to the extent of preserving its natural-
ness and freedom intact ; at the same time
effectually restraining the same dwellers from in-
flicting injury upon themselves and their posterity
by "improvements" which would include bricks and
mortar, park-keepers' lodges, gravel walks, parterres,
and conventionality.

A pure love for commons as commons, and a sus-
picious dread of all propositions for "improving "
open spsees,which on sanitary, picturesque, and even
sentimental grounds are better left to themselves,
seem to be the ruling motives of the Society.
Its members maintain, with great show
of reason, that whereas vast sums of money are
spent on the creation and maintenance of parks,
commons are ready to our hand, and if once
altered can neither be replaced nor restored. To
keep heather and hillock, wild flowers and turf in
their present condition ; to guard as carefully against
deterioration as against " improvement ;" to assist
residents in assisting themselves; to advise and en-
courage the maintenance of local common-keepers
rather than liveried beadles from a government
department, and to jealously protest against either
sympathy or friendship if its efforts for the public
good involve change—such would seem to be the
leading objects of the new Society. It supports its
views by historic illustration and statistical argu-
ment, and all dwellers in largo towns who have a
lingering fondness for nature unadorned will pro-
bably find the speeches of this morning strike a
scarce suspected chord, and will welcome a prac-
tical protest against the utilitarianism which would
pare and plane away to a uniform pattern of vulgar
neatness the picturesque irregularities most of us
have learnt to love.

RSPRISINTATION or BRECKNOCK. —(From our Cor-
neepondent.)—ln addition to the addressee (sa reported in
this paper on Monday) issued by Lord Brecknockon the
liberal and Mr. Howell Gwyn ou the conservative side, u
candidate' to AU the vacancy in the representation of the
Beecknock borough by the death of Colonel Watkins, eta
address to the elector, tea been put forth by Dr. Price, of
Aberdare, who advocates more advanced principles
than the noble earl.
Meetings in favour of Parliamentary Reform
were held oa Monday evening at Stafford and Dalkeith,
at both of which meantime were passed urging the go.
veroment to bring in a measure which should give to
the working clause a real and effective voice in the ream.
matatics.