The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Tl3lEs.—The evidence adduced at the inquest upon
the people who were killed by the fall of a house
near Holborn has abundantly explained the cause
of the disaster. In the first place, notwithstanding
the assertion of the landlords in a letter addressed
to us, it was proved that an important beam had
really been removed as much as 16 months ago.
The house was very old, and there was a support
between it and an opposite house in Hatton-garden.
This had rotted away, and had never been replaced.
But it was further proved that the house was in an
utterly dilapidated condition from top to bottom.
According to the occupier of the opposite house in
Hatton-garden the walls were "completely rotten."
" The water used to come down from the gutters
and bring the mortar down, and there were cracks
in the wall." Some of the bricks were bulging out
and others bulging in ; the parapet was overhang-
ing, and " the whole looked dangerous." A man
who had once lodged in the house, although not
summoned, requested to be sworn, and it is signifi-
cant that one of the landlords endeavoured to pre-
vent his giving evidence. He had once taken a room
in the house while on a job in the neighbourhood,
and lie suffered for it by his wife becoming injured
for life. His room was a " parlour," and there was
a large hole in the floor, through which his wife fell
as well as the woman who was killed the other day.
There was " a constant rattling like of mortar be-
tween the wainscoting ; and the deceased woman re-
marked more than once that if they did not get out
they should be buried alive." In short, it is won-
derful that the house remained standing so long.
Such being the facts, the public will inquire what
possible excuse can be offered for the landlords to
whom the house belonged, or for the surveyor
whose duty it was to have seen that a house in such
a dangerous position was repaired. As for the
landlords, one can only wonder at the effrontery they
have ventured to display. They cannot even urge the
miserable plea that they were not acquainted with
the condition of their property. The occupier of the
house in Hatton-garden, whose evidence we have
quoted, had called attention to the house"more than
two or three times," and had told one of the land-
lords, 15 months ago, " that it would most likely fall
down and somebody be killed." The landlord on
this occasion had himself looked at it, and had walked
away without giving an answer. The poor man
whose wife was injured had repeatedly appealed to
the agent to mend the hole in his room, but it was
neglected from November until Whitsun Saturday,
and the repair was then only done after the injury
had been inflicted on his wife. "The landlords,"
he said, " would not do anything to the place ;" and
they appear to have added insult to their neglect.
The letter, indeed, which they addressed to us was
itself sufficiently unfeeling. It did- not contain a
single expression of regret, and the writers seemed
rather to feel as if they were the persons injured, and
that it was very hard on them that a house on which
they had spent three years ago an eighth part of
£BOO should have occasioned them so much incon-
venience. It is, no doubt, provoking that their en-
deavours to spend as little money as they possibly
could should have been so signally defeated; but the
public will reflect that it is the duty of landlords to
regard some other interests besides that of their
own pockets, and that humanity and decency would
have prompted a very different feeling at such a time.
But, negligent as the landlords have shown them-
selves, a still more severe censure must be passed
upon the surveyor. This person displays a perfect
unconsciousness that he has any responsibility in the
matter, although he had no other office but to pre-
vent the occurrence of such an accident. He does
not betray the least sense that the calamity itself
convicts him of a failure in his duty. The mere fact
of the house having fallen reflects the strongest cen-
sure on him. Either he could not see the dangerous
condition of the house, in which case he is unfit
for his office ; or he saw it, and paid no attention
to it, in which case he has been guilty of culpable
neglect. From a remark which he made that " a
house might fall down from sonic latent defect," we
might be disposed to adopt the former alternative ;
but in the fact of the evidence which was offered we
are astonished at the audacity of such an excuse. It
was shown that the walls were cracking and bulging,
that the parapet was overhanging, and that an im-
portant beam had been removed, while it was only
necessary to go inside in order to see that the house
was perfectly rotten, and these are what this sur-
veyor calls " latent defects !" He, too, had not
been left to his apparently natural indifference, but
had been frequently appealed to respecting the
house. One witness had " complained to the clerk
of the district surveyor two or three times that the
house would be sure to fall down, but nothing was
done in consequence of those complaints." Ile him-
self acknowledged that a witness had appealed to
him more than three years ago. That landlords
should be blinded by their own greed, and should
" do nothing except take the rent," is, unhappily,
not unnatural; but surveyors are expressly appointed
for no other purpose than to prevent dangerous con-
structions, and to see that dilapidated houses are
rendered at least safe. After such evidence, and in
the face of such considerations, the verdict of the
jury must appear strangely inadequate. The verdict
-was " accidental death," and " the jury are of
opinion that there was a want of proper attention
on the part of the landlords, in not replacing the
beam, or strut, which had fallen down 16 months
ago, and which had evidently supported the walls
at the side of the house." The Coroner had
directed the jury that the evidence " was not such
as to make the landlords criminally responsible ;"
but we must, nevertheless, observe that the deaths,
properly speaking, were not " accidental " at all.
They are due, indeed, to what is commonly called
"an accident," but to au accident which was
foreseen three years ago, which might have
been easily prevented, and which it was the duty of
three persons to prevent. We have nothing to say
upon the legal aspect of the case, but the deaths
were directly due to perverse neglect on the part of
the landlords and the surveyor, and these persons
must be considered morally responsible. Yet 'the
jury have not a word to say to the surveyor, and
are content to charge the landlords with a want of
proper attention in one particular. There was, in
reality, an absolute want of any attention to the
condition of the house, and, moreover, an absolute
want of proper feeling towards the persons who
had suffered by such neglect. The least the land-
lords could now do would be to compensate the poor
people whom they have thus deprived of their mise-
rable shelter and of those few sticks of furniture
which form what they call their "home." The case
furnishes an excellent instance of the sort of conduct
on the part of landlords and surveyors which frus-
trates every effort of the Legislature to improve the
houses of the poor. The persons who, for the most
part, hold this miserable property have no other
thought than that of getting as much and spending
as little as they possibly can, and the surveyors are
apt to shirk the unpleasantness and the difficulty
of compelling such landlords to do their duty. In
time, moreover, the surveyor becomes hardened to
the wretchedness and neglect he everywhere observes,
and consoles himself, like the survey or at this in-
quest, by reflecting that " half-a-million houses in
London" are in the same condition. It is to this
also that we owe the grievous sanitary defects to
which the cholera has recently attracted our atten-
tion, and we may hope that the stringent Act of
the last Session will have a general effect in improv-
ing the condition of such houses. But no law can
be effectual if every one shirks its provisions, and if
no one willsee that it is properly carried out. It is
of the utmost importance, therefore, that such cases
of neglect as the one upon which we have been com-
menting should meet with fitting animadversion, not
only at the hands of the press, but of juries. The
responsibility of landlords and surveyors must not
be shuffled off upon the vague excuse of "accident."
HERALD.--Odd things as emperors and kings do
nowadays, it was very difficult to believe that the
Emperor of the French had written to the King of
the Belgians the " autograph letter of a reassuring
character" attributed to him by an omniscient tele-
graphic agent. Napoleon the Third is not weak
enough to accept the reputation which people may,
choose to give him, and because they credit him
with an intention to appropriate a portion of Bel-
gium, hasten to assure the Belgian Government
that he meditates no such dishonest act. The only
ground for such a letter would have been some ap-
peal from the King of "the Belgians ; and his Bel-
gian Majesty, although a young sovereign, must be
taken to have common sense enough of his own, or
to have enough at his command in his Cabinet, not
to anticipate such an evil, and invite France to
despoil him by entreating her not to do it until she
manifests sonic intention of the kind. It is the
policy of Belgium to assume the good faith and
friendliness of France. Distrust and suspicion would
do her no good, and up to the present time she has
had no reason for giving way to them. The Mold-
teur now tell us that our incredulity was perfectly
justified. The Emperor has not written to the King
of the Belgians, and declared " his desire to pro-
mote on every occasion the interests of the Belgian
dynasty"—a declaration which, being perfectly un-
called for, would have been of a disquieting and
not a reassuring character.
.But the French Go-
vernment has declared that asks no rectifica-
tion of the frontier on the side of Belgium. M.
Drouyn de Lhuys has, informed the British Go-
vernment—whether in answer to an inquiry made
through Lord Cowley or not is not stated—that

P. .......

France will not demand .the fortresses of rhi:
lippeville and Marienburg—that is to say, does no
ask any compensation for Prussian aggrandise-
ment at the cost of Belgium. These resolves of
the French Government are conformable with all
our anticipations. The material power of France
would be increased in no appreciable degree by
the acquisition of these fortresses and the small
slips of territory which she lost with then!. al
1814 ; and the amour propre of the
nation,
wounded by the triumphs of Prussia and the re-
settlement of Europe without French intervention,
would not be consoled by acquisitions made at the
expense of Belgium. If ever a French Governnten:
proposes a rectification of its frontiers on the side of
Belgium, that rectification will not consist in tne
paltry acquisition of a fortress or two, and a few
square leagues of territory. The neutrality and
in• -
dependence of Belgium will be assailed, the treaties
which bind France will be broken, for no such Ot):
prize. When France seeks compensation on t'"'
side of Belgium she will seek it by the absorptio• n
of the whole of Belgium the
, and the extension of
territory of France to its so called natural frontier,.
the Rhine. She may do so some day. At present
we have the assurance of the French Government
that it proposes no violation of Belgian territory,
and even those who may not give that assurance the
implicit credit which we do may find in the circum-
stances of Europe sufficient reasons to reassure
them. So far, therefore, as the English Government
and the English people are concerned, this questioa
of frontier rectification has lost all importance. We
are only concerned in the independence of Beigtev!i
We are assured by the French Government that it
will not meddle with Belgium. The rectification of
the French frontier on the side of Germany Is a
matter with which we have nothing to do, except so
far as the attempt to effect it is likely to product? 3
quarrel between France and Prussia. The 00°
of the districts upon the Saar and in the Palatinate,
which France asked, would not in the slightest de-
gree affect the balance of power, and the interests
of justice and treaty faith are not involved at a •
Indeed, one can hardly help regretting—assuming
that these cessions would have satisfied France'
;
that they were not made. The loss to Prussia and
Germany would have been nothing, and the refusal
has added to a mortification and anger which are
likely, for all the check which the good sense of the
Emperor of the French puts upon them, to lead, be-
fore very long, to a sanguinary war. Of course
no one can blame Count Von Bismarck for de-
clining dining to do that which, in the present temper
the Germans, would have been perilous in the.o-
- the more especially that his refusal has given
him an immediate success ; but it may hereafter be
deeply regretted both in Germany and in the rest
of Europe that the feeling of irritation which pre-
vails in France was not appeased by concessions
which, although Germany was quite warranted ta,
refusing to make them, would have cost her n°-
thing, and saved her the necessity of a continua,
;
readiness for war, and, too probably, a tremendous
struggle, in which all the achievements of the Eito
mer of 1866 will be imperilled.