“The death of a child by smallpox,” he went on to say, “would in most instances call for a verdict of ‘homicide by omission’ against the parent who had neglected daily opportunities of giving it immunity from that disease by the simple process of vaccination; the death of an adult by typhus would commonly justify still stronger condemnation (though with more difficulty of fixing and proportioning the particular responsibility) against those who ignore the duties of property, and who knowingly let for the occupation of the poor dwellings unfit even for brute tenants, dwellings absolutely incompatible with health.”
And then he proceeds to explain and justify and enlarge upon his assertion of the responsibility of the landlord.
“There are forty-five miles of sewerage in your jurisdiction, ready to receive the streams of private drainage, and leaving the owners of house property no excuse for the non-performance of necessary works…. But … the intentions of your Court, and the industry of its officers, have been in great measure frustrated by the passive resistance of landlords. Delays and subterfuges have been had recourse to in order to avoid compliance with the injunctions of the Commission.”
In his evidence before the Royal Commission of 1853–4 he said:—
“The poorer house property of the City is very often in the hands of wealthy people who have only the most general notion of its whereabouts, have perhaps never visited the place for which they receive rent, and in short know their property only through their agents.
“Instances have come to my knowledge of the very worst description of property being thus held ignorantly and carelessly by wealthy persons. Often for years we can get at no representative of the property other than the agent or collector who receives the weekly rent for some anonymous employer.”
In his third Report to the Commissioners of Sewers he wrote:—
“It is easy to foresee the numerous obstacles which interested persons will set before you to delay the accomplishment of your great task.
“When your orders are addressed to some owner of objectionable property—of some property which is a constant source of nuisance, or disease, or death; when you would force one person to refrain from tainting the general atmosphere with results of an offensive occupation; when you would oblige another to see that his tenantry are better housed than cattle, and that, while he takes rent for lodging, he shall not give fever as an equivalent—amid these proceedings you will be reminded of the ‘rights of property’ and of ‘an Englishman’s inviolable claim to do as he will with his own.’
“Permit me to remind you that your law makes full recognition of these principles and that the cases in which sophistical appeal will often be made to them are exactly those which are most completely condemned by a full and fair application of the principles adverted to. With private affairs you interfere only when they become of public import, with private liberty only when it becomes a public encroachment. The factory chimney that eclipses the light of heaven with unbroken clouds of smoke, the melting house that nauseates an entire parish, the slaughter-house that forms round itself a circle of dangerous disease—these surely are not private but public affairs.