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117
the persons who take them as lodgers; and that we
should act very unwisely if we relaxed our hold on
the letters of lodgings by throwing (as the Local
Government Board does) duties on lodgers which
we have hitherto required, and which we ought to
require, the letters of lodgings to perform, and many
of which it is in his own interests that, backed up by
us, he should himself enforce.
I may further add that the view originally taken
by the Sanitary Committee, namely, that the landlord
must be held responsible for that class of duties
which the Legislature has thrown upon the landlord,
and that the letter of lodgings must be answerable
for those duties which the Sanitary Acts require of
a tenant, in accordance with which our regulations
were framed, seems to me still the proper and the
only practical view to adopt. I have maintained
this division of duties therefore in my amended
scheme; and have not adopted the plan of the Local
Government Board which, as it seems to me contrary
to all law, demands of the tenant (whom it
calls the landlord) duties which with scarcely an
exception the landlord alone can be compelled to
perform. One might think from the careful way in
which real landlords are protected from the incidence
of the Local Government Board's regulations, that