upon the law is rendered greater by the
carelessness or ignorance or helplessness of
those for whom it has to care. Many a poor
housewife who would not fail to put her nose
to a mackerel, neglects to apply the same test
to her house.

No choice between right and wrong can
honestly be left to house-owners. The house-
owners who have the very poor for their
tenants often belong to a class of men unable
to understand more of their duty than the
duty of securing the receipt of rent. There
was a house, Captain Hay tells us, beset with
more filthiness than we care to express further
than by mildly saying that the cesspool
overflowed into the kitchen. The tenant's wife
said they had lost their health and money, and
it was no use applying to the landlord. The
owner did nothing, even when he had notice
of proceedings that were to be taken against
him under the act. It was only when
compelled by a magistrate's order that he filled
the cesspool up, and drained his premises into
the common sewer. Another example:—A
cesspool that contained the long-accumulated
filth of four houses, overflowed and ran into
a room used as a sleeping apartment. One
child had died in the room, and the inspector
found another lying ill. The drain in the yard
was stopped, causing the yard to be covered
with filthy water, in the midst of which stood
the butt that contained the water drank by
the inmates of the house. The owner would
do nothing but look after his rent. He was
summoned before a magistrate, and held the
language of an injured Briton. " He thought,"
said the police report, " he ought not to be
dictated to as to the way his property was to
be managed." By mistake, the order for
correcting this state of tilings was made
against the name of the poverty-stricken-
tenant. The owner took advantage of the
error, and did nothing. It was not until a
fresh notice had been served against him in
his proper name, and the case had again been
brought before a magistrate—it was not until
he was thoroughly and perfectly compelled
that he would stir a finger to save himself
from becoming the murderer of other people
living in his house. Such men are very
mercifully used when they are only forced into
the better path, and are not fined, imprisoned,
or transported as offenders.

The truth is, however, that they are only
in a few cases forced to give honest return
for the money of their victims. The police
exercise this supervision only over common
lodging houses, and for the more real homes
of the very poor little or no thought has yet
been taken. Even the common lodging-house
is an expensive home for the poor who live
in little families: twopence a night for each
bed would make a weekly rent beyond
the two shillings—more or less—that suffices
for the hiring of an independent room. The
homes made by these people are cursed as
often as ever common lodging-houses were
cursed by the neglect of landlords, and they
still remain under the curse. Legislation on
their behalf, and that, too, of a most stringent
kind, is absolutely needed.

It is also needed that the provisions of the
Building Act—and of other laws that, if
fully and properly enforced, would, in
many respects, amend the condition of
the humbler orders—should be acted upon
to the letter. There is still plenty of
room for the achievement of much good by
a right use even of the few powers that
have been already placed within men's
reach.

Before we shut up Captain Hay's report,
we shall do well to quote from it four or five
lines, on a topic which we have ourselves
quite recently discussed. We have shown
that there is need of accommodation for
families poorer than those provided for by
the existing societies, that erect wholesome
dwellings for the poor. Very poor families
that have to pay, and continue to pay, two
shillings and half a crown a week for single
rooms, of the most wretched and unwholesome
character, might have provided for
them at the same price, by any associations
taking thought for their especial wants and
accepting the restricted conditions under
which they are compelled to live, accommodation
infinitely better. This truth we lately
urged. Captain Hay points to families that
pay for their single rooms still lower rental,
for whom it may be more difficult, but surely
is not impossible to provide decent homes,
and for whom it is not less necessary to take
thought. " The model lodging-houses that
have been erected," he says, " secure to
respectable artisans, who occupy them, much
of the comfort of a private residence; but
the charge for this accommodation is quite
beyond the means of those who have no
regular employment, and whose means of
subsistence are narrow and uncertain.
Accommodation for a family at a rental of a
shilling or eighteenpence a week, as a maximum,
for this class of poor, is what is urgently
required, and should in some way be found."

The requirement certainly is not extravagant.
The building of tall houses lessens the
expense of ground-rent to each room that
they contain, and it is not too much to ask
that in such houses wholesome rooms should
be planned, if small, especially well ventilated,
letting each at about three pounds a year.
They would be always full, and the losses by
unpaid rent would be trifling, as they are
always trifling under a system of weekly
payments, maintained with a reasonable
strictness. It would be essential of course to
the success of any undertaking of this kind,
and as necessary for the good of the poor who
are supplied with homes, as of the richer
men who seek an honest profit by supplying
them, that the punctual payment of the
weekly rent, either by halfcrown or by
shilling rent payers, should be enforced with