To this succeeds North Finchley, beginning at the junction of a road from Child’s Hill with the Great North Road, known as Tally Ho Corner. North Finchley, called by the genteel “Torrington Park,” is yet another settlement, filched, like the cemeteries, from Finchley Common by successive iniquitous Acts of Parliament at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Could the gay highwaymen who, a hundred years ago, were gathered to their fathers at the end of a rope down Tyburn way revisit Finchley, the poor fellows would sadly need a guide. Where, alas! is Finchley Common, that wide-spreading expanse of evil omen on which these jovial spirits were so thoroughly at home? Finchley Common, once second only to the far-famed Hounslow Heath, has long since been divided up between the many who, more than a hundred years ago, conspired to cheat the people of their birthright in this once broad expanse of open space. The representatives of the people at Westminster allowed it, and my Lord Bishop of London profited by it, together with lesser folk, each in their several degrees. The Common then extended to considerably over two thousand acres. Of this vast tract only a few acres are left, beyond North Finchley. The rest was sold quietly, and by degrees, for absurdly small sums. [Picture: The Great Common of Finchley: a parlous place] Between 1700 and 1800 the great Common of Finchley was a parlous place, and not one of the better-known highwaymen but had tried his hand at “touching the mails” as they went across this waste; or patrolled the darkest side of the road, ready to spring upon the solitary traveller. Indeed, the childlike simplicity of the lonely travellers of those days is absolutely contemptible, considering the well-known dangers of the roads. For instance, on the night of the 28th August, 1720, a horseman might have been observed in the act of crossing Finchley Common. He had fifteen guineas in his pocket, and ambled along as though he had been in Pall Mall instead of on perhaps the most dangerous road in England. At a respectful distance behind him came his servant, and just in front of him, midway of this howling wilderness, stood three figures. “There is an eye that notes our coming,” says the poet, and three pairs of eyes had perceived this wayfarer. They belonged to an enterprising individual named Spiggott and to two other ruffians, whose names have not been handed down to posterity. The weirdly named Spiggott was apparently above disguising himself; his companions, however, might have stood for stage brigands, for one of them had the cape of his coat buttoned over his chin, and the other wore a slouched hat over his eyes. In addition to this, he kept the ends of his long wig in his mouth—which seems rather a comic opera touch. It is to be hoped, rather than expected, that the traveller with the guineas saw the humour of it. In the twinkling of an