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17,741. Therefore, if they collect their own rents they visit
these wretched hovels weekly?—I daresay they do, especially
as far as the front door is concerned. Whether they generally
look over the whole premises I should very much doubt; unless
their attention was called to something special that required
special looking after.
17,742. If a man collected his own rents you would imagine,
would you not, that he would look through the property occasionally
to see how it was being used, and whether his tenants
were knocking it about or not?—Yes.
17,743. If he does that he must be acquainted with the
wretched condition of these terrible places; and do you not
think that if these owners did their duty properly they would
report them to the vestry?—But where would be the need of
their reporting to the vestry when they have the remedy in their
own hands? they are the people whom the vestry would look to
if these cases were reported to the vestry.
17,744. Then does it amount to this: that we must reasonably
assume that these men do know the wretched condition of
this property, that they are taking every week the outside penny
from these poor people in the way of rent, that they make no
statement of the condition of the property to the local authorities,
and that they do not attempt to improve it themselves?—I
cannot say what they do. I cannot answer a broad statement of
that sort.
17,745. But it naturally follows that if a man collects his
rents weekly himself he must know the condition in which the
property is?—You would expect so, but as a rule I should say
that a man going round on the Monday morning to collect his
weekly rents would make all the haste he could from house to
house and from door to door. I very much question whether a
man would stop on such an occasion to look over the house
floor by floor and room by room; but the thing that would meet
his eye would be from simply going within the street door or,
say, into the parlour, or something of that sort.
17,746. I do not think that rather special way of excusing
them is good in this respect; that in these houses there are four,
five, and six rooms, and four, five, and six tenements, so that as
a consequence there is a tenant in each room. This Mr. Ball,
and Mr. Ross, and Mr. Hill, and others could not possibly
collect all tho rents from the six tenants at the one front door,
they would have to go into the rooms, would they not?—When
the house is wholly let out in tenements, certainty.
17,747. All those house of which wo are complaining are let
out in tenements. It naturally follows, does it not, that the