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suggestion that the end of the first week in April will be very often a difficult time
for it to be done, there may be other considerations in connection with the class of
lodging-house or the class of people who inhabit these lodging-houses, of which I do
not know, which may be counterbalanced by these considerations. Had it rested
with me, I should not have been disposed to hold, and I do not hold, that the
bye-law is bad because of that particular week being taken, but, for the reasons
which I have stated, which are, in my opinion, more substantial, with regard to the
question of no notice being given to an absent landlord who may be under no legal
or moral responsibility to see the Act carried out as between himself and the real
person in occupation or tenancy of the premises, I think this bye-law must be held
to be unreasonable, and that being so, the first acquittal must be supported, that
is to say, the first appeal must be dismissed and the second appeal must be allowed.
Mr. Justice Wills: I am of the same opinion, and I desire to adopt as part
of my Judgment everything which my Lord has said, except with regard to the
matter about the first week in the month of April, but there are a few observations
which I should like to add.
It seems to me that an initial mistake has been made in these bye-laws by
trying to make the same hard and fast rules apply to two perfectly different classes
of tenements. The lodging-house proper, which is something in the character of a
common lodging-house, may perfectly well be dealt with by a series of regulations
which are really inapplicable to the very large class of houses which are brought
under the common operation of these bye-laws under the words " houses occupied by
members of more than one family." Take the West End of London, where, we are
told, the same sort of bye-laws apply; it is not too much to say that there are many
large areas in some of the best parts of London where I should think it would be
no exaggeration to say that two-thirds or three-fourths of the houses are so occupied
that they would come under this definition. You cannot pass through a great
number of streets with which I am very familiar without finding half a dozen
doctors' names up on the same door; everybody knows it is the commonest thing
in the world for a medical man who has an extremely good house very highly rented
to let off one or two rooms as consulting rooms to somebody else. Well, that immediately
brings this house within the definition of a lodging-house, and makes all
these bye-laws applicable to it, and when you come to such a case the application
of the bye-law seems to me to be unreasonable to the least extent. The definition
of " landlord " embraces the person who receives the rack-rent of the house. Just
take the very large area, for instance, which is owned by the Duke of Portland.
Probably there are 500 to 1,000 houses there of which he receives the rack-rent, and
for everyone of which he would be liable as a landlord of a lodging-house within
the meaning of these bye-laws; and to hold that he is liable because everyone of
those houses is not thoroughly cleansed during the first week in April, or is not
limewashed from top to bottom during the first week in April, would impose