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that the part is equal to the whole. It can, however, having regard to
these statutes and to the interpretation put upon them by eminent
Judges no longer be disputed that for registration purposes a part of a
dwelling-house is under certain conditions of occupation a dwelling-house.
It does not, however, in my opinion, follow that this necessarily
involves the separate rating of every such part or the separate entry
in the occupiers' column of the rate book of the name of its occupier;
neither has this been the view taken of the decision by the rating
authorities of the country, if their views may be inferred from their
practice. The difficulty as regards the rating of "Let Out" houses was
evidently felt by those who framed the Act of 18G7, since they provided
by the exception contained in section 7 for the continuous rating of the
owners of such houses. This has never been repealed, and if it be urged
that since that Act passed the provision contained in section 19 of the
Act of 18G9, as enlarged by section 14 of the Parliamentary and
Municipal Registration Act, 1878. has become law, and that it requires
the insertion of the name of the occupier of every rateable hereditament
in the occupier's column in the rate book,. I venture to point out,—
(1.) that there has been no direct decision as to what constitutes a
"rateable hereditament" within the meaning of the section, and
(2.) that if for registration purposes that point was inferentially decided
in " Bradley v. Baylis " the Legislature has subsequently (by Section 9 of
the Act of 1884) provided another mode of meeting the difficulty,
which, while it insures the constructive rating of the occupiers of parts
of houses, with a view to registration, does not destroy the integrity of
the house for purely rating purposes.
One more word as to the legal decisions to which I have referred.
In none of these, save in Stamper's case, was the question of rating
directly in issue, and Stamper's case was decided favourably to the practice
at present followed in this and most other parishes. In the important
judgments of the late Master of the Rolls and of Lords Justices Baggallay,
Brett, Cotton and Lindley in the "Bradley v. Baylis" group of cases,
the question argued was essentially one of registration law, and what
those learned judges decided was that the appellant was entitled to be
placed upon the register as the occupier of a dwelling-house. In arriving
at that judgment some of the judges may have seemed to express au
opinion that the claimant was entitled to be actually rated, and some