“Abinger held that the letting of the goods and chattels, as well as the house, implies that the party who lets it so furnished is under an obligation to supply the other contracting party with whatever goods and chattels may be fit for the use and occupation of such a house according to its particular description and suitable in every respect. And Judge Shaw, of Massachusetts, says that in the case of furnished rooms in a lodging house, let for a particular season, a warranty may be implied that they are suitably fitted for such use.”[443]
“I should think,” said Jones, “that a would be tenant ought to go and inspect the premises for himself.”
“If he has an opportunity of doing so it might, perhaps, make a difference, but if he takes it upon the faith of its being properly furnished, common sense and common justice concur in the conclusion that the owner is bound to let it in an habitable state. So saith the Lord Chief Baron.”[444]
“I believe that it has been held in this country that the existence of a noxious smell in the house did not authorize the tenant’s leaving.”[445]
“Indeed. My lady, the Dowager Countess of Winchelsea, agreed to rent a furnished house in Wilton Crescent, London, for three months of the season of 1875 for the sum of 450 guineas. When her ladyship arrived with her servants and personal luggage, she perceived an unpleasant smell in the house, and declining to occupy it, had her horses taken out of the stable. On investigation, it was found that the drainage was in a very bad state, rendering the house quite unfit for occupation. In three weeks’ time, however, matters were put right, but her ladyship refused to go back or to pay rent. A suit was brought, in which the whole court unanimously held that the state of the drains entitled the Countess to rescind the bargain and to refuse to pay rent.[446] Abinger thought that if a tenant, on entering his lodgings, found out that the previous occupier had left because some one had recently died in them of the plague or scarlet fever, he would not be compelled to remain.[447] And in Massachusetts it was decided that a tenant who caught small-pox through no fault of his own, but because the owner wilfully neglected to inform him that the house was infected with that disease, might recover damages from the landlord.”[448]
Just then a slight movement on the part of Jones made the chair on which he was perched creak, crack, stretch out its legs, and let him down. As he was hastily apologizing for the damage, I remarked:
“Don’t trouble yourself, the occupier of furnished apartments is not responsible for deterioration by ordinary wear or tear in the reasonable use of the goods of the landlord.”[449]
“I’ll go now, at all events, as I am up,” said our friend, as he seized his hat and made his adieux.
Quære, was that a white handkerchief protruding slightly from his pistol pocket? Indispensables are tighter now-a-days than they used to be.