G52 
Good Tenantahle Repair. 
inventor is working out other modifications of the various parts of 
the machine, such as in situations where the milk can be run to a 
building below the level of the cow-house, making the weight of the 
milk maintain the vacuum, and so on ; but it is not necessary to 
describe these. The diagrams, together with this short description, 
indicate the main features of this new milking machine, which only 
requires to be seen in operation to demonstrate to practical men its 
feasibility. 
Riciid. Henderson. 
GOOD TENANTABLE REPAIR. 
A covenant by the tenant to keep the house in "good tenantahle 
repair " b,eing almost as common in leases or agreements for tenancies 
of farms as in leases or agreements for tenancies of ordinary 
dwelling-houses, a note of the following case,* in which the Court of 
Appeal laid down a clear definition of these words, which are often 
so puzzling as well to the practitioner as to the landlord and 
tenant whose interests are directly affected by them, will, it is con- 
sidered, be not out of place in the Journal, although the case 
referred to an ordinary suburban residence and not to a farm- 
house. 
The house and premises in question were let by the plaintiff to 
the defendant under an agreement in writing by which the defendant 
(amongst other things) agreed that he would " during the term keep 
the premises in good tenantable repair, and so leave the same at 
the expiration thereof." The tenancy having expired, the plaintiff, 
the landlord, brought an action against the defendant, the tenant, 
to recover damages for the breach of the foregoing agreement. It 
is unnecessary to set out in detail the various steps in the action — 
suffice it to say that the Official Referee, to whom the action was in 
the first instance referred, awarded damages in respect of the cost 
incurred by the landlord in re-papering the walls of rdoms where 
the paper which was upon them when the tenancy commenced had 
become worn out, in re-painting the internal woodwork where the 
paint had worn off, in w hitewashing and cleaning the staircases and 
ceilings, and in replacing with a new floor the kitchen fioor which 
had existed when the tenancy commenced. From this award the 
tenant appealed to the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court, 
who decided that the award was wrong, and remitted the case to 
the Official Referee. The landlord then appealed from that decision 
to the Court of Appeal, and the Judges of the Court of Apnea 
before whom the case was heard (Lord Esher and Lord Justice 
Lopes), in deciding that the case ought to be remitted to the Official 
Referee, defined the words "good tenantable repair" in such a way 
as to be a guide to the meaning of that expression, not only in the 
* I'rourtfoot r. Hart, reported in the Law Reports, 25 Q.B.D., i2. 
