The southern part, however, was, according to the same authority, the gift of Catherine and Mary Fynes to the City Corporation in trust for the citizens. Finsbury Square was built on the northern part in 1768, and finally, in 1812, the Corporation obtained an enabling Act from Parliament and put Finsbury Circus on the lower half, and thus perished the People’s Park after existing 800 years. The building upon this open space was a very short-sighted policy, and it says very little for the spirit of Londoners that such a policy was able to be carried out. The first encroachments on Moorfields took place, probably, after the fire, when thousands of citizens were homeless, and the Moor was used as a temporary place of encampment. Many of the houses then erected appear to have been fairly substantial, and it is probable that encroachments having been made in consequence of a sudden and dire necessity, and possession being nine points of the law, the City of London lost its park. Part of Moorfields had been used during the plague as a plague pit, and towards the end of the 17th century the great burial ground for dissenters, Bunhill Fields, was here established. The Artillery ground, once the exercising ground of the train-bands, still remains, and it is fortunate that the extinction of the Honourable Artillery Company has been averted and has not resulted in this “eligible building plot” being leased at so much a square foot. Moorfields is gone, the Drapers’ Garden is gone, and the wealthy City of London has now the proud distinction of being without any public recreation ground within its limits. It is true that the Corporation has bought Epping Forest, in the county of Essex, and Burnham Beeches, in the county of Buckinghamshire, and all honour to them for so doing; but it must be remembered that a third-class return ticket to Loughton, the centre of Epping Forest, costs 1s. 7d., and that to go from and return to Fenchurch Street takes one and a half hours, while a return third-class ticket from Mansion House to Slough, which is, I think, the station for Burnham Beeches, costs 3s. 6d., and the journey to and fro takes four hours at least, so that if each of the 51,000 people who reside in the City pay one visit to each of their parks, they would do so at a minimum cost of nearly £13,000, and at a necessary loss (collectively) of 281,000 hours, which at 3d. an hour means an additional £3,500.