keep and deliver up the premises in repair, it seems that the view
generally taken by surveyors of his liability--which will extend to
permanent erections made by the tenant himself--is as follows:--If
the parts can be repaired they may be so treated; but if the decay or
injury has gone so far as to render repairs insufficient to restore
the usefulness of the part, it must be made good. Thus, among the
items the tenant is called upon to make good is that of roofing;
such as to replace all loose and broken tiles, to strip and retile
where the laths are broken, or where the rafters, feet or purlins are
decayed; to restore all defective filleting and pointing. Defective
brickwork in walls, chimneys, shafts, parapets, and gables; portions
out of the perpendicular, or bulged, or cracked, have to be made
good, besides repointing where necessary, and refixing broken chimney
pots. Slated roofs also come under the same general clauses. Repairs
to woodwork include such items as the following: Making good all
loose or decayed timbers, whether injured by wet or dry-rot; to fix
timbers where not straight, through neglect or decay; to secure and
make good all loose, broken, or decayed weather boarding, frames,
skylights, wooden gutters, dormer boarding, and other external work;
also to make good broken or decayed wooden fences, door frames, &c.;
to secure and make good all loose, broken, or rotten floors; to fix
up and relay where not level, if by reason of neglect, and to rehang
where required all doors and shutters; replace broken lines, repair
sashes, nosings to stairs where defective, and treads. Questions are
continually arising regarding the liability of tenants to repair
joiners’ work, but it appears clear that the burden of repairs
falls upon the tenant. With respect to masons’ work, all defective
stonework of whatever description falls upon him. Thus, broken
cornices, lintels, and sills have to be made good by filling-in
pieces; also broken steps and landings, both inside and out. In case
of broken nosings, or of treads worn down as to become dangerous, the
piecing is to extend to cutting out the upper surface and filling
in the depth of nosing with a slab of sufficient thickness to form
a new nosing. Broken chimney pieces, slabs, and inner hearths are
to be made good or relaid; and loose and sunken pavings to be taken
up and relaid. All panes of glass having two cracks in them are to
be reinstated, besides making good all putty work. With respect to
painting, it is usual for the tenant to repaint all wood and ironwork
for their preservation, and where defaced, also on stone, stucco, or
other external work. Inside painting is exempted, except in cases of
misuse. To other trades the same rules apply; all broken fittings,
fixtures, and parts of buildings to be repaired or made good by the
tenant. The term “to make good” implies a renewal of the part, and
ought not to be confused with the general words “to repair.”
_Water._--Subject to anything in their special Act, a waterworks
company having pipes in the street where the house is situate may
be required by the occupier, with the consent in writing of the
owner, and upon payment or tender of the water rate in advance, to
make the needful communications, and are liable to forfeit 5_l._ for
non-compliance within seven days. Due care must be exercised by the
company to render the supply regular, but they are not responsible
for discontinuance caused by frost, drought, or other unavoidable
circumstance. The water must always be pure and wholesome, and in
this connection it may be mentioned that water is nearly always purer
as delivered by the company than as drawn from the householder’s
cistern, owing to gross neglect to keep the latter clean. The
company’s inspector may enter any day between 9 A.M. and 4 P.M. to
examine the fittings, and the householder is liable to heavy fines
for allowing water to be wasted or misused, or contaminated, besides
having his supply cut off till the evil is remedied, and incurring
all the cost incidental thereto. An incoming tenant should ascertain
by application at the offices of the company whether the previous
tenant is in arrears with his water rates, as it is said that in some
districts the newcomer may be compelled to pay the deficit before
getting a supply. This is certainly not the law in the metropolis,
at all events, where the incoming tenant is expressly declared to
be free from this liability, unless he has undertaken with his
predecessor to pay the arrears. The company are bound under heavy
penalties to keep a copy of their special act for inspection on
payment of a fee of 1_s._ per hour. This will show the charges they
are authorised to make, and the amount of the rate which is payable
in advance and usually based on the annual value, i.e. the _net_
annual value, or about the same as the net rateable value appearing
in the parochial rate-book.
_Gas._--Subject to anything in the special Act, the owner or occupier
of a house within twenty-five yards of a gas main, may, by notice
in writing, require the company to supply gas; they are bound by
penalties to comply within a reasonable time, provided the occupier
will agree to take gas for two years, and is ready to give security
for payment of his rates. The companies must supply gas of a certain
standard as regards purity and lighting power, but are not governed
as to pressure, hence the householder’s only means of preventing the
waste due to constantly changing pressure is to have a “regulator,”
as described in another section (p. 88). Gas is supplied at a price
per 1000 cubic feet used, the consumption being measured by a meter.
This meter may be supplied by the gas company and a rental charged
on it, the company keeping it in repair; or it may be supplied by
the householder at his own cost for purchase and maintenance; but
the householder must not alter the fixing or provide his own meter
without 24 hours’ notice to the company. The company, in either case,
have right of entry to examine the fittings at reasonable times.
The householder is liable to heavy penalties in respect of waste or
misuse of the gas or injury to the pipes, &c. Gas rates are usually
delivered quarterly and are payable at once, failing which the
company may proceed to recover and cut off supply, and may demand
security for the future before renewing supply, cost of which will
fall upon the householder. No incoming tenant is liable for rates
unpaid by his predecessor unless he has undertaken to pay them. The
company are bound under heavy penalties to keep a copy of their
special Act for inspection on payment of a fee of 1_s._ per hour.
=Servants.=--A general or indefinite hiring of domestic or menial
servants is said to be in law a hiring for a year, and the contract
therefore, unless the service is to begin on the same day or the day
following, ought, strictly to be in writing and signed; but it may
be made out by the letters of the parties, and does not require any
stamp. Wages, though reckoned by the year, are usually payable in
monthly instalments, but sometimes quarterly or yearly.
The service may, however, be freely terminated at any time by either
party giving to the other a month’s notice, or in lieu thereof paying
a month’s wages; and it has been ruled that payment of board wages
is _not_ necessary in the latter case. But the law is that where a
servant is guilty of conduct which is inconsistent with the true and
faithful discharge of his or her service, the master has a right
of instant dismissal. Immorality, drunkenness, gross impertinence,
disobedience, dishonesty of course, or incompetence to do the work
contracted to be done, are all facts which may justify the master.
Disobedience means a refusal to comply with a reasonable order within
the scope of the servant’s duties--a housemaid cannot be required to
groom a horse; nor is a servant bound to perform any service in which
he reasonably apprehends injury to himself, and which he has not
clearly agreed to perform. If your servant, when summarily dismissed,
refuses to leave the house, you may turn him or her out of doors, if
you feel yourself strong enough to do so; but, to avoid the risk of
an unseemly scuffle, your best plan is to send for the police.
_Wages._--As to the wages of a servant who has been summarily
dismissed upon legally sufficient ground, considerable
misapprehension seems to prevail. Strictly speaking she is not only
not entitled to a month’s wages in lieu of a month’s warning, but not
to anything at all for the intervening period from the last regular
pay day. Thus, if your cook, whose wages fell due and were paid on
the 5th of March, so misconducts herself on the 1st of April as to
justify her immediate discharge, she has no claim upon you for any
wages between the 5th of March and the 1st of April. But if there is
doubt as to your being able to prove the misconduct in court, it may
often be better to pay a month’s wages and the accruing wages than to
expose yourself to the risk of an action and the certainty of costs.
Of course if the wages due on the 5th of March had not been paid on
the 1st of April, your cook, badly as she might have since behaved,
would not lose her right to them. If, on the other hand, you have
discharged your servant for your own pleasure, so to speak, although
you are not bound to keep her in your house a moment longer than
suits you, she is entitled to the accruing wages up to the time when
she was discharged, and to a calendar month’s wages in addition, but
not to board wages for that period, as has been seen. In the absence
of any agreement, the master is not liable to pay a discharged
servant the expenses of her journey home.
_Breakages._--Servants have no right to break or damage their
master’s property, and if it is proved that damage has been caused
by any particular servant’s failure to use such care as it was
reasonable, under all the circumstances, to require _from him_, being
such as he is, he is liable in law to pay for the same. Formerly, no
deductions from the servant’s wages could be made on this account,
but recent reforms in legal procedure in effect permit them; but the
master when sued for the balance of the full wages must counterclaim
in respect of the damage, and had better consult a solicitor. The
best plan is to have an express agreement on the subject that
deductions may be made.
_Character._--A lady, when asked about the character of a servant in
whose favour she cannot say much, would do well in the first place to
ascertain that the request is made at the suggestion of the person
whose character is in question. If it is, and if the lady takes
care to speak only of what she knows, she will be safe enough; she
will be acting fairly by both the persons interested. Of course,
if she has only pleasant things to say, there is no difficulty
in answering such inquiries; but if she cannot give a favourable
answer, a stranger could not complain if she replied that she did
not feel at liberty to discuss a person’s character without that
person’s knowledge. Some people never give a character. This is most
unfair, and indeed cruel, in the case of a servant whose reputation
and competency are above reproach, for silence always implies that
there is something which one would rather not mention. Silence is
the appropriate refuge in the case of one who has given a reference
which he was not justified in using. It is easy to say, in such a
case, that the writer is afraid she cannot write such a testimonial
as would prove of service to the applicant; but in all other cases
it is always, practically as well as theoretically, safe to give
a character, if it is given fairly and honestly. A character when
given is a privileged communication; and, even if it be incorrect,
unless the servant who thinks herself aggrieved can show that it
was given with actual malice--as with knowledge of its falsity--she
cannot succeed in an action for defamation. To sustain such an action
and deprive the communication of its ordinary privilege, a strong
case of malicious and officious interference to the detriment of
the servant would require to be made out. But there is no privilege
attaching to information given to a neighbour of what is going on in
her household, if it was given in an idle, gossiping and malicious
spirit, rather than with the honest intention of giving important
information.
It is best always to interview the late mistress rather than apply
by letter, and a little shrewdness in studying the character of the
mistress is very desirable, for personal feeling takes the place of
impartial judgment in most, if not all, women.
_Illness._--A master is not bound to provide medical attendance and
medicine for even his menial servants; but if a servant falls ill,
and the master voluntarily calls in his own medical man, he will
not be allowed to deduct the charges for such attendance out of the
servant’s wages unless the servant specially agrees that he may do so.
=The Householder.= _Parochial matters._--Parochial business is
managed by a “vestry,” at which the parish clergyman has a right
to preside. Public notice of vestry meetings must be given 3 days
beforehand, and copies of the notice fixed to the principal doors
of churches and chapels, signed by rector, vicar, churchwarden, or
overseer. Every parishioner paying rates is entitled to votes. If
assessed at or above 50_l._, he may give one vote for every 25_l._,
but no individual can have more than 6 votes; no person can vote by
proxy. The chairman has a casting vote. Churchwardens are chosen,
in the first week after Easter, by joint consent of minister and
parishioners, or one by the minister and another by the parishioners.
Peers, members of Parliament, clergymen, dissenting ministers,
medical men, and attorneys, are exempt from serving as churchwarden.
Churchwardens are trustees of money given for the benefit of the
church, and must attend to repairs of the church and fences of the
churchyard. The pews in a parish church are the property of the
parish; distribution rests with the bishop or the churchwardens. The
churchwardens of a parish in which a dead body is cast ashore from
the sea, must have it interred in the parish burial ground.
The local management of this country is far too elaborate to be even
sketched here; for instance, the Public Health Act 1875 contains 343
sections, most of them of great length, and a variety of subsequent
amendments further complicate things, while the metropolis has its
own long series of enactments on the same part of the subject. The
whole matter is one which requires special study of countless Acts
of Parliament, based upon no theory in particular, and which will no
doubt shortly be thoroughly revised and reformed. The householder
desirous of information should have recourse to the officers of the
local authority or some member of that body, and if he cannot thus
get the satisfaction he wants he must recognise the inevitable result
of the activity of his own representatives and consult his solicitor.
_Juries._--All “good and lawful men” are eligible and liable to
be called on to serve on a coroner’s jury at an inquest held in
the neighbourhood, and non-attendance of a duly-summoned person is
punished with a fine which may amount to 5_l._
On juries at the assizes or sessions, or for the trial of causes
in Middlesex, any person who holds a freehold or copyhold of an
annual value of 10_l._, or a lease of 21 years or upwards at an
annual rent of 20_l._, or who pays rates of 20_l._ per annum (30_l._
in Middlesex) is eligible and liable to serve, provided his age
is between 21 and 60; when over 60, he remains liable till he has
notified his age to the authorities. Peers, members of Parliament,
judges, clergymen of every sect or faith, barristers, solicitors,
notaries, officers of legal courts, coroners, gaolers, physicians,
surgeons, dentists, apothecaries, chemists, officers of the army,
navy, militia, and yeomanry on full pay, officers of the post-office,
customs, inland revenue, or police, metropolitan police-court
officials, and officers of the Houses of Lords and Commons, are
exempted from serving; and members of the council of a municipal
borough cannot be called on to serve in the county where the borough
is situate, nor can burgesses of a borough having separate sessions
be summoned to the county sessions. The churchwardens and overseers
must make a list of the persons so liable to serve, and on the three
first Sundays in September fix a copy on the door of every place of
worship in the district, with a proper notification of the special
sessions for hearing objections, at which sessions the justices may
revise the list either by striking out the names of persons who are
exempt or not qualified, or under permanent physical disability,
or by adding other persons after due notice given to them. Jurors
who are esquires by law, bankers, or merchants, or who occupy a
farm rated at 300_l._, or other premises at 100_l._, or a private
dwelling-house rated at 50_l._ elsewhere than in a town of 20,000
inhabitants and upwards, are to be distinguished, and are qualified
and liable to serve on special juries, but they remain as liable
as before to be summoned for a common jury. A juror must attend
according to the tenor of his summons, which may be served either
by being shown to him or by being left at his usual place of abode
with some person there inhabiting, or by being sent by post to him;
and if, the summons having been so served six days previously, he
fails to attend, he is liable to such a fine as the court thinks fit
to impose. The liability to serve on a grand jury is unlimited, but
apart from this a juror cannot be summoned more than once a year for
the assizes and sessions unless the list is exhausted.
A juror may also be compelled under a five pounds penalty to serve
in the County Court of his district twice in the year, but is exempt
if he has served at the assizes or at the Royal Courts or Central
Criminal Court within six months previously. There is still a further
liability in various districts in respect of the local courts, such
as the Mayor’s Court, London, and the Salford Hundred Court; and the
sheriff requires the attendance of a jury in cases of assessment of
damages or compensation, or an inquiry as to the sanity of an alleged
lunatic, or as to claims made by virtue of the prerogative of the
Crown.
Aliens otherwise qualified, who have been domiciled in England or
Wales for ten years or upwards, but no others, are qualified and
liable to serve--since 1870, in which year was abolished the right of
an alien prisoner to have half the jury aliens.
_The Franchise._--Every man of full age who on the 31st July and for
the twelve months preceding is an inhabitant occupier, as owner or
tenant, whether in a county or a borough, of any dwelling-house, or
any part of a house separately occupied as a dwelling, the poor rates
in respect of which have been duly paid, is entitled to be placed
on the register of Parliamentary voters. There are various other
qualifications which confer the franchise, but full information and
assistance in obtaining registration are so readily given by the
political associations everywhere, that it seems unnecessary to state
them here. But the lodger franchise deserves some notice. For alike
in counties and boroughs any man who, being of full age, occupies
on the 31st July, and for the twelve months preceding, in the same
dwelling-house, separate lodgings, at a rent which would be not lower
than 4_s._ a week if the rooms were unfurnished, and who has resided
there for the twelve months, and who makes claim in the prescribed
form between the 1st and 25th of August, is entitled to be registered
as a voter.
_Fire Insurance._--The premiums payable in common insurances of
houses used for residence and the ordinary furniture therein are
so moderate that every householder ought to insure. China, glass,
watches, jewels, musical instruments, and pictures have to be paid
for at an average rate of from 4_s._ to 5_s._ per 100_l._, but
otherwise the rate for house and furniture may be taken to be from
1_s._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ per 100_l._ Circumstances alter cases, however,
and the rates of course vary with the risk in each instance, and
those given here are only mentioned as an index of their moderation.
It is essential that a full disclosure of the circumstances be made
to the office, for the contract of insurance is one requiring the
most complete candour and good faith on the part of the insured.
There should be a survey by the office, and every information
given to the inspector. Of course no office is bound to accept an
insurance, and while considering the proposal they will usually, on
payment of a deposit, effect a temporary insurance for two or three
weeks. A policy usually contains and is subject to many express
conditions which speak, more or less distinctly, for themselves in
each case, and need not be here discussed. But the contract contained
in the policy is one of indemnity against loss, and therefore a
person cannot validly insure property in which he has no interest at
all, nor can he in any case recover beyond the amount of the interest
which he has in the property insured. And as a policy cannot be
assigned without the consent of the assurers, a change of ownership
may render the policy useless _pro tanto_. It is obvious that where
the wife owns all or part of the furniture, the better plan is to
take out the policy in her husband’s and her names jointly, for
even if she owns it all, her husband while living with her has an
insurable interest in it. It is usually provided that the company
may reinstate the things destroyed or damaged, instead of paying for
the loss, while as regards insurances on buildings there is an Act
of Parliament which provides that any person interested may require
the insurance money to be laid out in repairs or rebuilding. It is
important to notice that a change in the state of the premises may
invalidate the policy, for the company contract to insure against the
risk described in the policy, and cannot be held liable in respect
of one which is materially different, or one which is greater. The
sanction of the company should therefore be asked for, and the
conditions usually contain express stipulations on the subject.
Lastly, it may be added that even if the fire has been caused by the
negligence of the insured person, the company are still liable on the
policy.
_Nuisance._--The law upon this point is to be referred to a principle
very simple in itself, though its limitations are sometimes difficult
to observe. The principle is that one must not use one’s own
property so as to injure one’s neighbour. So one must keep one’s
beasts, filth, stenches, &c., within the boundaries of one’s own
property; and if they transgress, the transgression imposes liability
for the damage caused thereby. But in questions of this nature the
law does not regard trifling and small inconveniences or allow
persons to stand on extreme rights, for things could not go on if
it did, and everything must be looked at from a reasonable point of
view. The noise resulting from the ordinary use of the dwelling-house
next door may penetrate the intervening wall, but it must be put
up with. On the other hand, the noise may be so great as to amount
to a nuisance, and the constant ringing of bells and other noises
have been stopped by the Court for this reason, and howling dogs or
crowing cocks may give the neighbours good grounds for complaint.
In the case of any premises, gutter, privy, drain, ashpit, or any
deposit which are or is in such a state as to be injurious to health,
or any animal which is so kept, information should be given to
the local sanitary authority, who have special powers given them.
Overcrowded houses, and factory or workshop chimneys sending out
black smoke so as to cause a nuisance, are within the same category.
As to these matters, the metropolis is not governed by the same
enactment as the rest of England, but it will always be a safe plan
to apply to the vestry or the local board of the district with a
proper description of the matter complained of, when the applicant
will at any rate receive attention in exchange for courtesy. It
will often be more convenient to make inquiry at the nearest police
station, and the police will put the inquirer in the right course.
Any person suffering from a dangerous infectious disease, who
wilfully makes use without proper precautions of any street or any
public conveyance, is liable to a penalty of 5_l._, and so is the
person in charge of him.