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223
The above case is interesting both as a warning and as an
example. It shows how easily people may protect themselves
when taking a house—not indeed against ill-health, resulting
from insanitary conditions, but against pecuniary loss. It also
shows what great risks a negligent or reckless owner may incur
by a loose or a false assurance as to the sanitary arrangements
about which he may know nothing—or too much. The precedent
will be useful, but for my own part I would go even further, and
contend (as I did in 1884) "that there should be an implied
warranty when a house is let, that it is in a proper sanitary
condition, that it is fit to live in; "and repeat the expression of
my hope then uttered, "that before long this may be established
as a principle of English law." It is a principle of English law
in respect of houses or parts of houses inhabited by the working
classes, a fact which may not be without its bearing upon the
question of " unhealthy areas," such as that dealt with in the
scheme of the Housing of the Working Classes Committee of the
County Council, referred to in another part of this Report (page 140).
Section 75 of the Act, under which that scheme has been
prepared, enacts that:—
" In any contract made after the 14th day of August, 1885, for letting
for habitation, by persona of the working classes, a house or part of a
house, there shall be implied a condition that the house is at the commencement
of the holding in all respects reasonably fit for human
habitation.*"
The expression "letting for habitation by persons of the
working classes,"means" the letting at a rent not
exceeding in England the sum named as the limit for the
* It would be an interesting enquiry how many of the 652 occupied houses on
the Bethnal Green "unhealthy area." let, wholly or in part, since August 14th,
1885, comply with the "implied condition" of the section, and to what extent
the owners of insanitary houses have laid themselves open to damages for
breach of the said condition 1 The question is really important, in connection
with the report of the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green, as to the
state of ill-health of the poor people, and the excessive mortality which
prevails. Would that a philanthropist would take up their cause, and help them
to obtain the redress to which, by the above law, they would appear to be
entitled No better service could be done, to bring about a better state of
things in regard to the housing of the poor.