THE TENANT AS DECORATOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 29, 4 February 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE TENANT AS DECORATOR.

An odd legal principle was raised in a case at Clcrkenwell County Court recently, says tlie Manchester "Guardian." The tenant of a flat in Highgate, a gentleman evidently of poctic and classical affections, had decorated . his rooms with quotations from the poets and his doors with Latin inscriptions. A stanza from Shelley in cobalt blue embellished the paper of one room, from his bed his handiwork appropriately reminded him that "sleep knits up the ravell'd sleave of care," his dining room door ho labelled refectorium, and his kitchenette —a neat touch this— coquena. His landlady, when he left, did not see eye to eve with him in the matter of aesthetics and sought damages. The registrar, however, found for th© defendant on the interesting grounds that he had done no wilful damage and had not prejudiced the desirability of the flat in the eyes of "the type of person -who might be expected to rent a flat in such a neighbourhood as Highgate." Whether he considered Shelley and Shakespeare peculiarly appropriate to Highgate while only Lawrence, let us say, would have been right for Chelsea, and Gertrude Stein for Bloomsbury, the registrar did not explain. But on the whole his judgment may be taken as a compliment to the suburb. It will, moreover, rejoice the hearts of all tenants who have been tempted to shape their temporary homes more llearly to their liking. A reasonable amount of asthetic freedom goes, it would seem, with the tenancy o-f a flat., How far it goes remains an interesting conjecture, and before the Clerkenwell decision sets tenants at work with brush and paint-pot it would be well to reflect that all judges may not so thoroughly approve the poets of their choice as did the one at Clerkenwell, nor all areas be deemed so amenable to eccentric decoration as was Highgate.