THE LAW OF HOTEL LIFE
THE
LAW OF HOTEL LIFE
OR THE
Wrongs and Rights of Host and Guest.
BY
R. VASHON ROGERS JR.
Of Osgoode Hall, Barrister-at-Law
SAN FRANCISCO:
SUMNER WHITNEY AND COMPANY.
BOSTON: HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
1879.
Copyright 1879,
BY SUMNER WHITNEY & CO.
A PREFACE.
The author knows as well as did old Burton that “books are so plentiful
that they serve to put under pies, to lap spice in, and keep roast meat
from burning,” yet he ventures to offer another volume to the public,
trusting that some men’s fancies will incline towards and approve of it;
for “writings are so many dishes, readers guests, books like
beauty--that which one admires another rejects.” He thinks he can say,
in the words of Democritus Junior, that “as a good housewife out of
divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth, a bee gathers wax and honey
out of many flowers, and makes a new bundle of all, I have laboriously
collected this cento out of divers authors, and that _sine injuria_. I
cite and quote mine authors.”
This volume was written at the suggestion of the Publishers, as a
companion to “The Wrongs and Rights of a Traveller,” and is now
committed to the tender mercies of general readers, and to the
microscopic eyes of the critics who know everything. Doubtless mistakes
will be found; but if every one knew the law who thinks he does, lawyers
would starve.
R. V. R. JR.
_Kingston, Ont., March, 1879._
CONTENTS.
I. A COMMON INN AND INNKEEPER, 1
II. CITY HOUSE AND MANNERS, 18
III. ACCIDENTS, ROOMS, DOGS, 31
IV. GUESTS, WAGERS, GAMES, 58
V. SAFES AND BAGGAGE, 76
VI. FIRE, RATS, AND BURGLARS, 97
VII. HORSES AND STABLES, 117
VIII. WHAT IS A LIEN? 136
IX. DUTIES OF A BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPER, 152
X. MORE ABOUT BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPERS, 166
XI. CHARMS OF FURNISHED APARTMENTS, 173
XII. NOTICE TO QUIT AND TURNING OUT, 189
CHAPTER I.
A COMMON INN AND INNKEEPER.
The last kiss was given--the last embrace over--and, amid a storm of
hurrahs and laughter and a hailstorm of old slippers and uncooked rice,
we dashed away from my two-hours’ bride’s father’s country mansion in
the new family carriage, on our wedding tour. The programme was that we
were to stay at the little village of Blank that night, and on the
morrow we expected to reach the city of Noname, where we would be able
to find conveyances more in accord with the requirements of the last
quarter of the nineteenth century of grace than a carriage and pair.
Arm in arm and hand in hand we sat during the long, bright June
afternoon, as the prancing grays hurried us along the country roads--now
beside grassy meads, now beneath o’erhanging forest trees, then up hill,
next down dale, while little squirrels raced along beside us on the
fence tops, or little streamlets dashed along near by, bubbling,
foaming, roaring and sparkling in the sheen of the merry sunshine, and
the broad fans of insect angels gently waved over their golden disks as
they floated past; all nature, animate and inanimate, smiling merrily
upon us, as if quite conscious who and what we were. But little did we
note the beauties of sky or field, cot or hamlet, bird or flower, for
was it not our first drive since the mystic word of the white-robed
minister of the Church had made of us twain one flesh? The beauties of
the other’s face and disposition absorbed the contemplation of each of
us. Once or twice, indeed, I felt inclined to make a remark or two anent
the fields we passed; but remembering that I knew not a carrot from a
parsnip, until it was cooked, or wheat from oats, except in the
well-known forms of bread and porridge, and not wishing to be like Lord
Erskine, who, on coming to a finely cultivated field of wheat, called it
“a beautiful piece of lavender,” I refrained.
Love in itself is very good,
But ’tis by no means solid food;
And ere our first day’s drive was o’er,
I found we wanted something more.
So when at last, as the shadows began to lengthen and still evening drew
on, we espied in the valley beneath us the village in which was our
intended resting place, I exclaimed:
“Ah! there’s our inn at last!”
“At last! so soon wearied of my company!” chid my bride, in gentle
tones. “But why do people talk of a village ‘inn’ and a city ‘hotel’?
What is the difference between a hotel and an inn?”
“There is no real difference,” I replied, glad to have the subject
changed from the one Mrs. Lawyer had first started. “The distinction is
but one of name, for a hotel is but a common inn on a grander scale.[1]
Inn, tavern, and hotel are synonymous terms.”[2]
“What do the words really mean?”
“Have you forgotten all your French? The word ‘hotel’ is derived from
the French _hôtel_, (for hostel,) and originally meant a palace, or
residence for lords and great personages, and has, on that account no
doubt, been retained to distinguish the more respectable houses of
entertainment.”
“Well, what is the derivation of ‘inn’?” queried my wife.
“I was just going to say that that is rather obscure, but is probably
akin to a Chaldaic word meaning ‘to pitch a tent,’ and is applicable to
all houses of entertainment.[3] Inns there were in the far distant East
thirty-five centuries and more before you appeared to grace this mundane
sphere;[4] although, when the patriarch Jacob went to visit his pretty
cousins, he was not fortunate enough to find one, and had to make his
bed on the ground, taking a stone for his pillow.”
“And very famous in after years did that just mentioned pillow become,”
said Mrs. L., interruptingly. “And much pain and grief, as well as glory
and renown, has it brought to those who have used it.”
“What meanest thou?” in my turn queried I.
“Don’t you know that upon that stone the sovereigns of England have been
crowned ever since the first Edward stole it from the Scots, who had
taken it from the Irish, who doubtless had come honestly by it, and that
it now forms one of the wonders and glories of Westminster Abbey?”
“Indeed!” I remarked, with an inflection in my voice signifying doubt.
“I wonder who kept the first hotel, and what it was like,” quoth my
lady.
“History is silent on both points,” I replied. “But doubtless the early
ones were little more than sheds beside a spring or well, where the
temporary lodger, worn and dirty, could draw forth his ham sandwich from
an antediluvian carpet-bag, eat it at his leisure, wash it down with
pure water, curl himself up in a corner, and, undisturbed by the thought
of having to rise before daylight to catch the express, sleep--while the
other denizens of the cabin took their evening meal at his expense.”
“But no one could make much out of such a place,” urged Mrs. Lawyer.
“Quite correct. Boniface, in those days, contented himself with an iron
coin, a piece of leather stamped with the image of a cow, or some such
primitive representative of the circulating medium.”
“Times are changed since then,” remarked my companion.
“What else could you expect? Are you a total disbeliever in the
Darwinian theory of development? Inns and hotels, in their history, are
excellent examples of the truth of that hypothesis. Protoplasm maturing
into perfect humanity is as nothing to them. See how, through many
gradations, the primeval well has become the well-stocked bar-room of
to-day; the antique hovel is now the luxurious Windsor, the resplendent
Palace, the Grand Hôtel du Louvre; the uncouth barbarian, who showed to
each comer his own proper corner to lie in, has blossomed into the
smiling and gentlemanly proprietor or clerk, who greets you as a man and
a brother; the simple charge of a piece of iron or brass for bed and
board (then synonymous) has grown into an elaborate bill, which requires
ducats, or sovereigns, or eagles to liquidate. But further discussion on
this interesting question must be deferred to some future day, for here
we are,” I added, as we halted at “The Farmer’s Home.”
“I don’t believe that Joseph’s brethren ever stopped at a more miserable
looking caravansary,” said my wife, in tones in which contentment was
not greatly marked. “Are you quite sure that this is the inn? It has no
sign.”
“That fact is of no moment,” I hastened to reply. “A sign is not an
essential, although it is evidence of an inn. Every one who makes it his
business to entertain travelers, and provide lodgings and necessaries
for them, their attendants, and horses, is a common innkeeper, whether a
sign swings before the door, or no.”[5]
“And a common enough innkeeper he looks, in all conscience,” said Mrs.
Lawyer, as mine host of the signless inn appeared upon the stoop to
receive his guests. Coatless he was, waistcoat he had none; the rim of
his hat glistened brightly in the declining sun, as if generations of
snails had made it their favorite promenade; his legs, or the legs of
his pantaloons, were not pairs--they differed so much in length; his
boots knew not the glories of Day & Martin; his face had hydrophobia, so
long was it since it had touched water; and “wildly tossed from cheek to
chin the tumbling cataract of his beard.”
With the grace of a bear and the ease of a bull in a china-shop, he
ushered us into the parlor, with its yellow floor, its central square of
rag-carpet, its rickety table, its antique sampler and gorgeous pictures
on the walls, its festoons of colored paper depending from the ceiling,
its flies buzzing on the window-panes. Sad were the glances we exchanged
when for a minute we were left in this elegant boudoir.
“What a nuisance that the other inn was burnt down last week, and that
there is none but this miserable apology for one within thirty miles,” I
growled.
“’Tis but for a night,” returned my wife, in consolatory tones. “It is
only what we might have expected, for saith not the poet:
‘Inns are nasty, dusty, fusty,
Both with smoke and rubbish musty’?”
Soon we mounted the groaning stairs to our dormitory, and found the
house to be a veritable
“Kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And bedrooms dirty, bare, and small.”
The room assigned to us might have been smaller, the furniture might
have been cheaper and older--possibly; but to have conceived my blooming
bride in a more unsuitable place--impossible. I asked for better
accommodation; Boniface shook his head solemnly, (I thought I heard his
few brains rattle in his great stupid skull) and muttered that it was
the best he had, and if we did not like it we might leave and look
elsewhere.
“We must make the best of it, my dear. The landlord is only bound to
provide reasonable and proper accommodation, even if there were better
in the house; he need not give his guests the precise rooms they may
select.”[6]
We resolved to display the Christian grace of resignation.
As speedily as possible we arranged our toilets and descended once more
to the lower regions, with the faint hope that the dining-room might be
better furnished with the good things of this life than either the
parlor or bed-room. Sad to relate, the fates were still against us: we
found, on entering the _salle à manger_, a couple of small tables put
together in the middle of the room, covered with three or four cloths of
different ages and dates of washing, and arranged as much like one as
the circumstances of the case would allow. Upon these were laid knives
and forks; some of the knife-handles were green, others red, and a few
yellow, and as all the forks were black, the combination of colors was
exceedingly striking. Soon the rest of the paraphernalia and the
comestibles appeared, and then Josh Billings’ description became
strictly applicable; “Tea tew kold tew melt butter; fride potatoze which
resembled the chips a tew-inch augur makes in its journey thru an oke
log; bread solid; biefstake about az thick as blister plaster, and az
tough as a hound’s ear; table kovered with plates; a few
scared-tew-death pickles on one of them, and 6 fly-indorsed crackers on
another; a pewterunktoon kaster, with 3 bottles in it--one without any
mustard, and one with tew inches of drowned flies and vinegar in it.”
Fortunately, long abstinence came to our aid, and hunger, which covers a
multitude of sins in cookery and “dishing up,” was present, and our
manducatory powers were good; so we managed to supply the cravings of
the inner man to some extent.
“What is this?” I asked of the landlord, as he handed me a most
suspicious looking fluid.
“It’s bean soup,” he gruffly replied.
“Never mind what it’s been--what is it now?” I asked a second time. A
smile from my wife revealed to me my error, and I saved the astonished
man the necessity of a reply.
At the table we were joined by an acquaintance, who informed me that he
had great difficulty in obtaining admission to the house, as the
innkeeper had a grudge against him.
“No matter what personal objection a host may have, he cannot refuse to
receive a guest. Every one who opens an inn by the wayside, and
professes to exercise the business and employment of a common innkeeper,
is bound to afford such shelter and accommodation as he possesses to all
travelers who apply therefor, and tender, or are able to pay, the
customary charges,”[7] I remarked.
“But surely one is not bound to take the trouble to make an actual
tender?” questioned my friend.
“I am not quite so sure on that point,” I replied. “Coleridge, J., once
said that it is the custom so universal with innkeepers to trust that a
person will pay before he leaves the inn, that it cannot be necessary
for a guest to tender money before he enters.[8] But, in a subsequent
case, Lord Abinger said that he could not agree with Coleridge’s
opinion,[9] and three other judges concurred with Abinger, although the
court was not called upon to decide the matter. In fact, the point has
never been definitely settled in England. Text-writers, however, think
an offer to pay requisite,[10] and it has been so held in Canada.”[11]
“But what,” said my friend, “if the proprietor is rude enough to slam
the door in your face, and you cannot see even an open window?”
“Oh, in that case even Abinger would dispense with a tender.”[12]
“It seems hard that a man must admit every one into his house, whether
he wishes or no,” said my wife.
“Reflect, my dear,” I replied, “that if an innkeeper was allowed to
choose his guests and receive only those whom he saw fit, unfortunate
travelers, although able and willing to pay for entertainment, might be
compelled, through the mere caprice of the innkeeper, to wander about
without shelter, exposed to the heats of summer, the rains of autumn,
the snows of winter, or the winds of spring.”
“Do you mean to say that improper persons must be received?”
“Oh dear no! A traveler who behaves in a disorderly or improper manner
may be refused admission,[13] and so may one who has a contagious
disease, or is drunk.[14] And, of course, if there is no room, admission
may be refused.[15] But it will not do for the publican to say that he
has no room, if such statement be false; for that venerable authority,
Rolle, says: ‘Si un hôtelier refuse un guest sur pretense que son maison
est pleine de guests, si est soit faux, action sur le case git.’”[16]
“You don’t say so!” said my friend, aghast at the jargon. I continued:
“And a publican must not knowingly allow thieves, or reputed thieves, to
meet in his house, however lawful or laudable their object may be.”[17]
“Suppose they wanted to hold a prayer-meeting, what then?” asked my
wife.
“I cannot say how that would be; but a friendly meeting for collection
of funds was objected to. Nor should he allow a policeman, while on
duty, to remain on his premises, except in the execution of that
duty.[18] And he may prohibit the entry of one whose misconduct or
filthy condition would subject his guests to annoyance.[19] And I
remember reading that Mrs. Woodhull and Miss Claflin were turned away
from a New York hotel on the ground of their want of character.”
“What if the poor hotel-keeper is sick?” inquired Mrs. Lawyer.
“Neither illness, nor insanity, nor lunacy, nor idiocy, nor
hypochondriacism, nor hypochondriasis, nor vapors, nor absence, nor
intended absence, can avail the landlord as an excuse for refusing
admission.[20] Although the illness or desertion of his servants, if he
has not been able to replace them, might be an excuse; and perchance his
own infancy, and perchance not.”[21]
“What can you do if he refuses to let you in?” asked my friend. “Break
open the door?”
“No, that might lead to a breach of the peace. You may either sue him
for damages, or have him indicted and fined; and it is also said in
England that the constable of the town, if his assistance is invoked,
may force the recalcitrant publican to receive and entertain the
guest.[22] If you sue him you will have to prove that he kept a common
inn;[23] that you are a traveler,[24] and came to the inn and demanded
to be received and lodged as a guest; that he had sufficient
accommodation,[25] and refused to take you in, although you were in a
fit and proper state to be received,[26] and offered to pay a reasonable
sum for accommodation.”
“In most hotels they keep a register in which one is expected to
inscribe his cognomen by means of a pen of the most villainous
description; must one give his name, or may he travel _incog._ and
without exhibiting his cacography?”
“An innkeeper has no right to pry into a guest’s affairs, and insist
upon knowing his name and address,”[27] I replied.
“Talking about registers,” began my friend Jones, but in tones so low
that what he said must go in the foot notes.[28]
“Last summer,” continued talkative Jones, “I tried to get quarters late
one Saturday night at a village inn, but the proprietor refused to admit
me; and a venerable female put her head out of the window, like Sisera’s
mother, and told me that they were all in bed, and that they could not
take in those who profaned the Sabbath day.”
“You might have sued for damages,” I said, “for the innkeeper being
cosily settled in his bed for the night, or it being Sunday, makes no
difference in a traveler’s rights;[29] at least where, as in England, it
is not illegal to travel on that sacred day.”
“I think you said that one must be a traveler before one could claim the
rights of a guest--is that an essential?”
“Yes, a _sine qua non_. Bacon says: ‘Inns are for passengers and
wayfaring men, so that a friend or a neighbor shall have no action as a
guest’[30] (unless, indeed, the neighbor be on his travels[31]). The
Latin word for an inn is, as of course you know, _diversorium_, because
he who lodges there is _quasi divertens se a via_.”[32]
“What wretched food!” said my wife, as she helped herself to a biscuit.
“’Tis enough to poison one.”
“It is by no means a feast of delicacies--the brains of singing birds,
the roe of mullets, or the sunny halves of peaches,” returned our
friend.
“Well, my dear,” I replied, “a publican selling unwholesome drink or
victuals may be indicted for a misdemeanor at common law; and the
unhappy recipient of his noxious mixtures may maintain an action for the
injury done;[33] and this is so even if a servant provides the goods
without the master’s express directions.”[34]
* * * * *
A stroll through the village, and a little moralizing beside the
scarcely cold embers of the rival inn, where
“Imagination fondly stooped to trace
The parlor splendors of that festive place,
The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish’d clock that clicked behind the door,”
passed the time until Darkness spread her sable robe over all the
earth. We sat outside our inn in the fresh air, and listened while the
myriad creatures which seem born on every summer night uplifted in joy
their stridulous voices, piping the whole chromatic scale with infinite
self-satisfaction. Innumerable crickets sent forth what, perhaps, were
gratulations on our arrival; a colony of tree-toads asked, in the key of
C sharp major, after their relatives in the back country; while the
swell bass of the bull-frogs seemed to be, with deep and hearty
utterances, thanking heaven that their dwelling-places were beside
pastures green in cooling streams. For a while we listened to this
concert of liliputians rising higher and higher as Nature hushed to
sleep her children of a larger growth. Ere long, the village bell tolled
the hour for retiring. I told the landlady to call us betimes, and then
my wife and self shut ourselves up in our little room for the night.
Very weariness induced the partner of my joys and sorrows to commit her
tender frame to the coarse bedclothes; but before “tired Nature’s sweet
restorer, balmy sleep” arrived, and with repose our eyelids closed, an
entomological hunt began. First a host of little black bandits found us
out, and attacked us right vigorously, skirmishing bravely and as
systematically as if they had been trained in the schools of that
educator of fleas, Signor Bertolotto, only his students always crawl
carefully along and never hop, as we found by experience that our fierce
assailants did. After we had disposed of these light cavalry--these F
sharps--for a time, and were again endeavoring to compose our minds to
sleep, there came a detachment of the B-flat brigade, of aldermanic
proportions, pressing slowly on. Again there was a search as for hidden
treasures. Faugh! what a time we had, pursuing and capturing, crushing
and decapitating, hosts of creatures not to be named in ears polite.
Most hideous night, thou wert not sent for slumber! It would almost have
been better for us had we been inmates of the hospital for such
creatures at Surat, for there we would have been paid for the feast we
furnished. Here we had the prospect of paying for our pains and pangs.
I am an ardent entomologist; but I solemnly avow I grew tired that night
of my favorite science. ’Twas vain to think of slumber--
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
nor yet the plan adopted by the Samoan islanders, who place a snake,
imprisoned in bamboo, beneath their heads and find the hissing of the
reptile highly soporific, could medicine us to that sweet sleep which
nature so much needed. At length we arose in despair, donned our
apparel, and sat down beside the window to watch for the first bright
tints heralding the advent of the glorious king of day.
“Must we pay for such wretched accommodation?” asked my wife,
mournfully. I shook my head as I replied:
“I fear me so.[35] We might escape;[36] but I don’t want to have a row
about my bill in a dollar house.”
As soon as morning broke we began our preparations for an early
departure from the purgatory in which we had passed the night. When we
had descended, and had summoned the lady of the house to settle with
her, my wife spoke strongly about the other occupants of our bed.
The woman hotly exclaimed, “You are mistaken, marm; I am sure there is
not a single flea in the whole house!”
“A _single_ flea!” retorted my wife, with withering scorn; “a _single_
flea! I should think not; for I am sure that they are all married, and
have large families, too.”
“Yes,” I added,
‘The little fleas have lesser fleas
Upon their backs to bite ’em;
The lesser fleas have other fleas,
And so _ad infinitum_.’”