The Sun.
London, England, 1834-05-12 00:00:00

COMMON LANDS, OTHERWISE STYLED

WASTE LANDS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN
Whoe'er doth steal a noose from off a common,
Is straight transported—be they man or woman
Then, surely he doth well deserve a noose,
Who steals the COMMON from the goose.—Anon.

SIR, —ln your account of the Parliimentary deha':es
recently, you state that Lord Ellenborough moved " for
a ,ekct Committee, to consider a petition for the more
easy enclosure of waste lands :" and that, among th.-
P.. r. a:ipointed to be of that Committee, were the names
of toe Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord President of lb
King's Council; the Earl of Ripon, Lord Keeper of th
Privy Seal; the Duke of Richmond, the Duke of Wel-
lington, the Mirquis of Salisbury, Viscount Melbourne,
Baron Dicre, anti Baron Wynford.

How the Lords will act in the Select Committee I wilt
nut pretend to judge ; hut 1 here venture to prophecy to
the good people of England, that the whole thing will
end—as all attempts at injustice• ought to end—in the
eternal disgrace of those persons behind the curtain, who
have had the assurance to plan, and of others before it,
who shall be at all accessory to, such a. barefaced attempt
at defrauding the nation at large of its INALIENABLE IN -
HERITANCE. The potentates of the two Houses have
done many extraordinary things within my recollection ;
and not the least extraordinary have been the Bills passed,
See-ion after Se-sion, for what they amusingly call " the
Improvement of Waste Lands." I like improvements in
every thing, particularly in the culture and use of land ;
but I have often thought that the landlords of England
and Wales take a great deal of trouble, and have
often gone ,so vast expense in improving the lands of
other people, when their own moors, lands, game pre-
serves, and other waste lands, shod so much in need of
cultivation. What these men have been doing, in this
e esp.:et, for some years, they will one day have cause to
regret. They have been making additions to their own
estates, by splitting up the commons' lands, (that is, the
lands belonging to the people) and shaving them amine
themselves; I►ut are they aware that every acre t.f such
improred land is liable to resumption ?
Per spa the most valuable part of the Constitution of
England is the possession, by parish communities, of those
tracts of land, both arable and pasture, which lie open,
without dike or fence, for the common use of all the
parishioner•—their horses, their asses, their cattle, their'
sheep, and their poultry. These commoNs, as they were
called by our forefathers, but which the degenerate Eng-
nab Briton of the 19th century brought up in the boast
tul but absurd idea that the intellect of his nation has
stolen a march upon that of all other nations in
the wotld, has chosen to designate waste lands ;—I say these
commons were never given to their present proprietors;
and therefore, except by fraud or force, they cannot be
taken away. Isaac gave to Esau and Jacob each a por-
tion of land ; E- .u's hunger 'nide him exchange his pure
lion with his cunning and greedy brother for a mess of
pottage. In equity, or by physical force, Esau could re-
sume; hut, according ►o turict I iw,—at 6;14 by the law
of England,—his right was gone, however small th#con •
siderstion given in exchange, because the Lands bad been
his own private property, and because, according to one
•if the sages in the House of Peers, " Every msn has a
right to d.► what he likes with his own." Although
Essn's children were. beggared by the foolish bargain of
the r father, still, in law, Jacob had a right to keep
what be had got. So much for private property : not so
as regards property possessed in common by fifty or a
hundred, or more familits, the heads of which, holding
only fur their own lives, cannot alienate, fi►r any consi-
deration, from their children and their other descendants.
These lands were not given even to their original or first
holders, because there was no one to give them ; the y lay
contiguous, or around the ton ns and parishes; conse-
quently they were used by all in co tttttt on ; and from time
immemorial they were considered distinct from private
property.

On the division of England into parishes, Alfred's wis-
dom suggest d a more exact definition of the lints or
boundaries between the lands for common use, and the
estates of private men; but this distribution or allotment
was no gift; it was merely an act of the Sovereign, Ira
councillors and his surveyors, which was agreed upon by,
and agreeable to, the nation at 1 tige. Tbis solemn act of
Government and people was intended to be permanent;
and no case was supposed, or exception made, in or by
which any portion of these lands could be claimed by their
first hol -era as their own or in, or by which they could
sell or alienate the in from their descendants or successors.
Whit then would Alfred and our forefathers have said, if
they cond have supposed it pissihte that this esaential
portion of the BRITISH CONSTITUTION, Which they were
then rectifying and placing on its ancient basis, should in
after ages be liable to be overturned by Acts of Parlia-
ment " for the improvement of waste lands ?" But
what would they have further said or tone, could t' ey
have sopposed that, in the age of the march of intellect,"
in the age of eternal boasting of the superexceltenry of
th, British Constitution, all the lands which they hid
111.,tted for the perpetual betiefi of all the people, were
to be confiscited at one fell swoop by a single Act of Par-
iiament ? Alfred and his compatriots could never have
contemplated such a case of barefaced public rohbery, any
more than they could have looked forward to the deatruc- ;
tion of other parts of the British Constitution by men
who should in atter ages be appointed by the people to
watch over their rights and inteiests.
I would ask any of our march-of-intellect leeislators,
whether they think they could, by an Act of Parliament,
.bolish the ADMINISTRATION OF ausricE and TRIAL BY
JuwY in Englarui ?-whether they could take away the
right of ELECTION AND REPRESENTATION from all the
~eople in Go a, Britain and Ireland, by an Act of Par.
itameot ?—whether they could put an end to LIBERTY OF
FREE SPEECH in the TWO HOUSES, by an Act of Parlia
meta ?—or whether they c •uld deprave the whole nation
to all their natural and constitutionul RIGHTS OF LIBERTY
AND PROPERTY, by an Act of Pitliament ? Unless the
legislator's "intellect' happened to march so fast, as to
leave sanity and common sense far behind, he must an-
swer, "No." Well, then, does he imagine that the out-
tinued, nay, perpetual, possession of their own lands, by
the people of England,is less precious to them than anyof t he
rights or privileges above recounted ? Can he think that
the Constitution is preserved whilst the people's lands are
confiscated? And, will he deny that the right of public
property by parish communities is at least of tantamount
import ince with the right of private property by indi-
victuals? Surely not. Indeed, the right of public and
private property by communities and individuals, is the
very base—the very founoation of our CONSTITUTION ;
take either of them away, and the whole superstructure of
eiahts and privileges of Kit g and people falls to th.
ground. I wish to he fully and literally understood
when I state with the strongest emphasis of words, that,
on that day, on which the two Houses of Parliament shall
pass, and the King shall sign, a B:11 for the confiscation
rf the COMMON; LANDS, or for their appropriation to
'any other use than that settled by our wise ancestors, and
determined by the immortal Alfred ;—I say distinctly,
hat on that day, "THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION" will
expire ;_will die a death of violence. But, I hope for better
things. Surely, there is some virtue—some patriotism
left amongst us. Surely, the " Schoolmaster " has not
(riven all common ,ense from our skulls, or flogged us
into a !Atte of entire stupidity : I trust not ; and I trust,
likewise, that the two Houses will speechly be made
acquainted with the determination of Englishmen, not to
be robbed of their dearest rights by the cart-loads of PE-
TITIONS (?) which, in all likelihood, will soon he laid on
- their tables. MASANIELLO

A few days ago as some men were engaged
in a stone quarry near Chatsworth, they split a huge
block, in the centre of which they found a lump of
reddish granite, weighing upwards of 701b5., bearing
the representation of a calf's head, of rude but spirited
workmanship.—Derby Reporter.

THE SWELL MOB.—Durinc, the inspection
of the First Regiment of Life Guards on Thursday
afternoon by his Majesty at the Regent's Park Bar-
racks, some of the light-fingered gentry contrived to
introduce themselves amongst his Majesty's suite, and
succeeded in extracting from the fob of Lord Skel-
mersdale a valuable gold repeater and appendages.
The robbery was committed while his lordship was
standing close to the King, who but a few minutes
previously had asked the Lord in Waiting what o'clock
it was. His lordship, not having a watch, turned to
Lord Skelmersdale and inquired the time, when his
lordship pulled out his watch to ascertain it, and then
returned it to his fob. In a few minutes afterwards
his lordship found that he had been robbed of it, but
it had been taken from him with such adroitness that
his lordship has not the slightest idea at what period
he was divested of. it. Information was immediately
given to the police on duty, and, although a strict look
out was kept for any persons of suspicious character
leaving the barrack-yard, the thief escaped detection.
His Majesty on being informed of the fact could not
refrain from laughing heartily, and jocularly remarked
that he would " Get out of such bad company as soon
as possible." The stolen watch is of great value,
made by Bauv ; ( ;IC; (1 tiis it live splendid
gold seals.