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SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE POOR. 59
keeper of such lodging-house shall offend against
any of these provisions, he shall be liable for each
such offence to a penalty not exceeding 5l., and
the like penalty for every day after the first upon
which any such offence shall be continued.' The
spirit of these enactments is excellent; but unhappily
the definition given at the end of the clause
excludes from the operation of the law those very
cases which most need to fall within it. 'Common
lodging-house' (it runs) 'shall, for the purposes of
this act, mean any public lodging-house, not being
a licensed victualling-house, in which persons are
harboured or lodged for hire, for a single night, or
for less than a week at one time, or in which any
room is let for hire to be occupied by more than
one family at one time.' Lodging-houses, according
to this definition, are (I am informed) hardly
to be found within the City of London; and the
clause has remained, and seems in its present form
likely to remain, quite inoperative. If, in any
future renewal or amendment of your Act, the
definition could be modified in such a manner, that
the powers given in respect of lodging-houses
should be extended to all the poorer tenements of
the City, where the several floors are let separately
at a weekly rent, the clause in question would be
rendered one of the most serviceable in the Act,
and one of the most general application. In its
present form, the clause barely enables you to deal
with the temporary bed-accommodation of trampers