"If it were not for the vigilance of the Inspectors in visiting the houses of the poor, nuisances would remain altogether unattended to; for very few of the poor dare to make a complaint from fear of being compelled to quit their tenements." The Medical Officers of Health recognised that much of the bad condition of the dwellings of the poorer classes was due to the people themselves. Thus the Medical Officer of Health for Westminster wrote (1865-6):-- "It is much to be regretted that in certain districts of the parish only a temporary good is effected by a sometimes lavish expenditure on the part of the proprietor. The habits of the people are such that it is almost impossible to do anything for their benefit. Not only are they filthy in themselves, but they take every opportunity to break, destroy, and steal anything that may be of value, and what is even worse they appear to negative any sanitary precaution effected for their benefit." But the broad truth was that the real, the primary responsibility rested upon the "owners." Theirs was the property. And them it behoved to keep that property in a condition which was not a danger to the community and to the State. The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel wrote (1865):-- "The duty and interests of landlords appear to be at variance as regards their doing to their houses what is absolutely necessary for the well-being of their tenants. It is unquestionably the duty of landlords to keep the houses which they let out in separate tenements to the poor in a healthy condition; but this is not always done even if compulsory orders are signed and summonses issued.... "Many of the landlords of small house property fully understand and carry out the rights of ownership, but fail to carry out the duties which are enjoined upon them as owners." The Medical Officer of Health for Islington, referring to some vile property in his parish, wrote (1863):-- "Landlords of such property as this will rarely do anything out of consideration for the health or lives of their tenants; compulsion alone will extort amendments. What is needed here is the closure of the fatal houses until made fit for human habitation." How an "owner" could manage his property can be gathered from the following report of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington (1863), which called attention to "the insanitary condition of a block of houses (about thirty in number) which had been for many years notoriously liable to the invasion of epidemics and to the prevalence of those diseases which are the known product of sanitary neglect--badly constructed and dilapidated, and wanting in the commonest appliances of cleanliness. All were the property of one individual who had been repeatedly urged to put them in a proper sanitary state." But it was not until stringent compulsory measures were taken that he began to do so, and some years elapsed before they were really done.