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224
position of rates by section 8 of the Poor Rate Assessment and
Collection Act, 1869," in other words, at a rent not exceeding
£20 per annum, 7s. 6d. being the weekly equivalent.
By section 13 of the Housing of the Working Classes
(England) Bill, 1885, a measure introduced by Lord Salisbury
with a view to give effect to recommendations of the Royal Commission
above referred to, it was proposed to enact that, in any
contract for letting an unfurnished house for human habitation,
there should be implied a condition that the house was in all
respects reasonably fit for habitation; and that in the event of a
breach of such condition, any inmate of such house who suffered
any loss by injury to health or otherwise, in consequence,
should be entitled to recover damages from the person responsible
for such breach. Unfortunately, the section was altered
in Committee so as to become of little value for practical
purposes. The "condition," however, is implied by existing
law in the letting of a furnished house, as was shewn by the
result of an action (Charsley v. Jones) brought, in 1889, for
breach of an agreement to let a furnished dwelling house at Ryde,
to which reference was made in my last Report. Owing to the
alleged defective system of drainage, and the contaminated condition
of a well, in connection with the house, several members of the
plaintiff's family got typhoid fever; and so the plaintiff and his
family had to quit the house and find apartments elsewhere. The
learned Judge (Mr. Justice Manisty), in summing up to the
(Special) Jury, said that "the law int he case of a furnished house
was, that there was an implied undertaking that the house was fit
for human habitation. The question was, whether the typhoid
fever was due to the house not being in a reasonably habitable
condition owing to the water or the drains ? It seemed that the
defendant honestly believed that the house was in a fit state for
habitation ; but that was not the question." The learned Judge,
having gone carefully through the evidence, said, as regarded the
damages, if they thought the house was not fit for human habitation,
the plaintiff was entitled to a verdict for the rent and such
other expenses as he was put to. The Jury returned a verdict for
the plaintiff, with £70 damages.