obliged to pay for the hire of a useless animal, but was compelled to furnish a good horse to the man who hired him the bad one. In no other transaction is there anything comparable. If Miss Scott's dressmaker had sent home an unwearable dress, Miss Scott could have refused to pay. When a "dangerous" house has been sold, the purchaser is required to rebuild it!
This case was thrown into Chancery, and if the Chancery acted up to its first professions, of being a Court of Equity, to "soften and mollify" the rigour of the Common Law, here was an excellent opportunity of doing so. By every rule of "equity," the expense of making good the damage ought to have been shared between the ground landlord and the original lessees. Both were undoubtedly to blame, and the only doubt could be whether the blame should be equally divided, or whether the original lessees, having actually built the house, ought to be considered more responsible than the duke, who by his agents had accepted the house as well built. The one person who had nothing to do with the erection was, however, the one person elected to make good the damage!
This is, of course, an extreme case ; but the system is the same in all cases—the ground landlord, who benefits most at least cost to himself, is the most protected by the law. which ensures that at every expiration and every transfer he shall find himself enriched by other men's labour, and the expenditure of other men's money, and the exercise of other men's abilities. Thirty years ago, Professor Thorold Rogers defined the position of the landlord: "Every permanent improvement of the soil, every railway and road, every bettering of the general condition of society, every facility given for production, every stimulus supplied to consumption, raises rent. The landowner sleeps, but thrives. He alone, among all the recipients in the distribution of products, owes everything to the labour of others, but contributes nothing of his own. He inherits part of the fruits of present industry, and has appropriated the lion's share of accumulated intelligence."
The following letter, signed "Englishwoman," appeared in the London Echo some six or seven years ago. It is an instance of the sort of extortion often practised on the renewal of a lease.
