lessees had not fulfilled the condition of "workmanlike" building, contained in the Title Deeds. But it was Miss Scott who was ordered to make the house safe and habitable—in this case it must have been almost rebuilt. This she very excusably refused to do, alleging that she could not afford to pay twice over for the leasehold, and that the damage was caused by the negligence of the ground landlord's surveyors, and of his lessees. An action of eviction was then begun. And this was hardly the worst. Every legal device was employed, and many illegal ones, which need not be particularised here. One instance, however, of a distinct attempt on the part of the law to protect the stronger side must be given, because English law claims for itself not merely a supremacy, but something not far removed from a monopoly of justice. "In the course of my eviction from the 'Dangerous Structure,'" says Miss Scott in a statement published this year, "I was not permitted to say that I had received either loss or damage—or that the house was not built in the manner alleged in the Title Deeds, or that it had always been kept in good repair since it had come into my possession, nor that the ground landlord's agent had called upon them (the original lessees) to repair the house, according to the terms of their lease. Then I tried to state these simple and undeniable facts I was at once summoned to appear in Court, so that these statements on my part should be 'struck out,' as being 'embarrassing and vexatious' to the lessees, and moreover I was to pay for having dared to make the attempt of vexing 'and embarrassing them. … 'But,' I said, 'they did refuse to put the house in order, and conform to the terms of their lease, when requested to do so by the ground landlord's agent.' 'It may be so,' said the Master of the Court; 'but you cannot be allowed to remind them of that; it is vexatious to them, and embarrassing.'"
Thus the law endorsed the dishonest cynicism of caveat emptor. It refused to take into account that Miss Scott had paid for an uninhabitable house—the finer feelings of those who sold it to her must be considered, to the extent of not even allowing them to be reminded of the loss caused to herself. It is as though a man who has hired a horse unable to work not merely found himself
