dealers was limited to those with whom they were in contract relations: where a defective lamp was sold: Longmeid vs. Holliday, 6 Exch. 761; a defective chain: Blakemore vs. Ry. Co., S E. & B. 1035; a chandelier improperly hung: Collis vs. Selden, L. R. 3 C. P. 495; a defective valve in an oil car: Goodlander vs. Oil Co., 63 Fed. 401; a porch to a hotel: Curtain vs. Somerset, 140 Pa. St. 70; a balance-wheel: Loop vs. Litchfield, 42 N. Y. 351; a bridge: Marvin Safe Co. vs. Ward, 46 N. J. L. 19. In Loop vs. Litchfield, supra, the opinion insists upon the distinction between articles not dangerous in nature and those which are necessarily and highly dangerous, such as the poison in Thomas vs. Winchester. In each of these cases a dealer who negligently supplied a customer with a defective article was held liable to a third person injured by reason of the defect: where the thing sold was a folding-bed which collapsed and injured a lodger in the house of the customer: Lewis vs. Terry, 111 Calif. 39; where highly explosive oil was sold: Wellington vs. Oil Co., 104 Mass. 64; Elkins vs. McKean, 79 Pa. St. 493; hogs known to be diseased: Skinn vs. Reuther, 135 Mich. 57; inflammable stove-polish: Clement vs. Crosby, 148 Mich. 293. Where the maker of a heavy roller, by plugging and painting, concealed the presence of some large knot-holes in the machine, and sold it to a dealer, and the dealer sold it to a farmer, who was injured in using the roller, the farmer was held entitled to recover against the maker: Kuelling vs. Mfg. Co., 183 N. Y. 78. Where the defendant, a chemist, sold to the plaintiff's husband a hair-wash containing deleterious ingredients, and the vendee gave it to his wife, who used it and was injured by it, the chemist was held liable to the wife: George vs. Skivington, L. R. 5 Exch. 1. The defendant was the owner of a dry-dock and contracted with one Gray, a master painter, for the painting of a ship. Gray sent the plaintiff to do the work; the defendant supplied the plaintiff with some ropes by which to suspend the staging to be used in painting; the ropes proved defective, as the defendant would have known had he not been negligent, and the plaintiff was injured by the fall of the staging; the defendant was held liable to the plaintiff: Heaven vs. Pender, L. R. 11 Q. B. 503, reviewing the English cases. The development of the doctrine on this subject, and its various applications, are outlined in these cases which are stated below: Langridge vs. Levy, infra, p. 510; Thomas vs. Winchester, infra, p. 517; State vs. Fox, infra, p. 527. In a more recent case, the defendant, a wholesale dealer in oil, had sold to a retailer as coal oil a very inflammable mixture of coal oil and gasoline, the sale of such a composition being prohibited by statute; some of the oil was sold by the retailer, without knowledge on his part of its dangerous character, to a customer; in the use of the oil, the customer's house was set on fire and destroyed and his wife and children killed; to the contention that the company was not liable to the customer because there were no contractual relations between them, it was answered: "From these facts it is apparent that the responsibility of the oil company rested not on contract but in tort, and therefore the contention as to the want of contractual relation is irrelevant": per WHITE, J., in Oil Company vs. Deselms, 212 U. S. 159. Liability for Premises. The owner of real property is, as owner, not bound to keep it in any particular condition or to provide for the safety of other persons who may, for purposes of their own, come upon it. He must not, however, allow the premises to become a nuisance; and he creates a nuisance, for which he is liable to any one thereby injured, if he digs a pit or does other work upon his land so near to a public way as to be dangerous to those passing: Barnes vs. Ward, infra, p. 541. If, however, the dangerous construction is so far from the highway that persons using the way must leave it and become trespassers before they are exposed to peril, the owner is not answerable for accidents so occasioned: Hounsell vs. Smyth, infra, p. 539; Hardcastle vs. Railway Co., infra, p. 542; Blyth vs. Topham, Cro. Jac. 158. But the owner may, by acts of his in relation to his property, create a duty toward other persons obliging him to varying degrees of care concerning the safety of the premises. The liability for the condition of the place may be considered with reference to: 1. Trespassers, that is, persons who come upon the land wholly without authority from the owner; to these the owner owes no duty except, negatively, not wantonly to injure them. To such a person the proprietor is not liable for negligence in the management of his property: Mergenthaler Co. vs. Kirby, infra, p. 543. 2. Licensees, or persons who use the premises with the owner's permission but without other right, and wholly for purposes of their own; to these the owner has no obligation to keep his property safe, but only not to create thereon any secret danger which may injure them-not to lay traps for them: 3. Maenner vs. Carroll, infra, p. 542; Invited Visitors, that is, persons coming by invitation but for purely social persons; these are only licensees, and the host assumes toward them no other duty than he owes to other licensees: Southcote vs. Stanley, infra, p. 537. 4. Customers, including all who come, by invitation express or implied, not necessarily to buy goods from the owner, but for any business which concerns him; as a mechanic sent for to do work upon the premises, or a passenger using the carrier's premises incidentally to his journey upon the carrier's line: Indermaur vs. Dames, infra, p. 543; To persons of this class the landowner owes the affirmative duty to keep his premises in a reasonably safe condition. 5. Tenants. In the letting of real property there is, on the part of the lessor, no implied covenant, warranty or representation that the premises are in any particular condition, or that they are safe or fit for habitation or for any other use: Viterbo vs. Friedlander, 120 U. S. 707; Doyle vs. Railway Co., 147 U. S. 413. Although the lessor knows, and the lessee does not know, that the premises are unsafe, the former is not, in the absence of fraudulent representation or concealment, liable for accidents due to the dangerous condition, nor is the latter relieved from the obligation to pay rent: Keates vs. Cadogan, 10 C. B. 591; Bowe vs. Hunking, 135 Mass. 380; cited in Doyle vs. Railway Co., supra. In a case where the lessor does not know of any dangerous defect in the property, he is not liable for any injury therefrom sustained by the tenant, although the lessor might have discovered the defect by moderate diligence: Howell vs. Schneider, infra, p. 552. The lessor is not liable, nor is the lessee discharged of the obligation to pay rent, because the house proves to be uninhabitable: Hart vs. Windsor, infra, p. 549; Fisher vs. Lighthall, infra, p. 549. These principles are subject to qualification in respect of two classes of tenancies: 1. Where the letting is of furnished lodgings, being principally a contract for the use of personal property: 2. house: Smith vs. Marrable, infra, p. 548; Hart vs. Windsor, infra, p. 549. Where the letting is of an apartment in an apartment O'Hanlon vs. Grubb, infra, p. 554. Vaughan vs. Menlove, 3 Bingham's New Cases, 468. Common Pleas (1837). THE SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION CASE. The defendant had upon his land, in the summer of 1835. q stack of hay. Owing to the prevailing weather, there was in the neighborhood much apprehension of spontaneous combustion; and, while there were conflicting opinions as to the likelihood of such an occurrence, the defendant had been advised that his hay was in danger and also dangerous to others. To such advice he responded that he "would chance it." He did, however, make an aperture or chimney through the body of the stack; "but, in spite, or perhaps because of, this precaution, the rick at length burst into flames from the spontaneous heating of its materials." The flames spread across the defendant's boundary and destroyed some cottages belonging to the plaintiff. The latter sued Menlove, alleging that the loss of the cottages was due to the defendant's negligence in the keeping of his hay stack. At the trial, the jury were told to find for the plaintiff if they thought that the fire had been occasioned by gross negligence on the part of the defendant, the court saying he had been bound to proceed with such reasonable caution as a prudent man would have exercised under such circumtsances. A verdict for the plaintiff having been returned, the defendant moved for a new trial on the ground that the jury had been directed to consider whether the defendant's conduct had been negligent with reference to the standard of ordinary prudence “a standard too uncertain to afford any criterion;" and it was argued that the test that should have been prescribed was "whether he had acted bona fide to the best of his judgment; if he had, he ought not to be responsible for the misfortune of not possessing the highest order of intelligence." The motion was overruled and a judgment entered for the plaintiff.* TINDAL, C. J.: It is contended, however, that the learned judge was wrong in leaving this to the jury as a case of gross negligence, and that *HOLMES, J.: It is quite true that negligence must be determined upon the facts as they appeared at the time, and not by a judgment from actual consequences which then were not to be apprehended by a prudent and competent man. Th's principle nowhere has been more fu'ly recognized than by this court; Lawrence vs. Minturn, 17 How. 100; The Star of Hope, 9 Wall. 203. But it is a mistake to say, as the petitioner does, that if the man on the spot, even an expert, does what his judgment approves, he cannot be found negligent. The standard of conduct, whether left to the jury or laid down by the court, is an external standard, and takes no account of the personal equation of the man concerned. The notion, that it "should be coextensive with the judgment of each individual," was exploded, if it needed exploding, by CHIEF JUSTICE TINDAL in Vaughan v. Menlove, 3 Bing. N. C. 468, 475. And since then, at least, there should be no doubt about the law: The Germanic, 196 U. S. 589. "Suppose that a defendant were allowed to testify that, before acting, he considered carefully what would be the conduct of a prudent man under the circumstances, and, having formed the best judgment he could, acted accordingly. If the story was believed, it would be conclusive against the defendant's negligence, judged by a moral |