HORSES AND STABLES.
Time passed, and back to the East we had come. On a certain day my wife
and myself, together with a couple of friends, yclept Mr. and Mrs. De
Gex, engaged a carriage and pair to take us some twenty or thirty miles
into the country to see some wonderful sights--what they were is quite
immaterial at this late date. A pleasant drive and charming day we had.
The night we were to spend at a little village inn.
The mistress of the small establishment received us right warmly, so
that a perfect glow of pleasure pervaded one’s inner man.
“Ah,” said Mrs. De Gex, who was inclined towards sentimentalism, “how
true are the words of the poet!
‘Whoe’er has traveled life’s dull round,
Where’er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think that he has found
His warmest welcome at an inn.’”
The innkeeper told our driver to leave the carriage outside on the road.
One of the party asked if that would be safe.
“If it is not,” I replied, “Boniface is responsible, for I remember
that, in England, a man drove up to an inn on a fair day and asked the
landlord if he had room for the horse, and a servant of the
establishment put it into the stable, while the traveler took his coat
and whip into the house, where he got some refreshment. The hostler
placed the gig in the open street, (outside the inn-yard) where he was
accustomed to leave the carriages of guests. The gig having been stolen,
the publican was held liable.”[302]
“That seems rather hard, when, perhaps, the yard was full,” some one
remarked.
“The landlord was not bound to receive the gig if he had not sufficient
accommodation for it. The guest did not know whether there was room or
not; and as the hostler took the horse, he had a right to assume that
there was. If the proprietor had wished to protect himself he should
have told the traveler that he had no room in the yard, and that he
would have to put the gig in the street, where, however, he would not be
liable for it. He did not do so, and had to bear the penalty.[303] And
it has been held in this country that an innkeeper would be responsible
in the same way where a guest’s servant had placed his master’s property
in an open, uninclosed space, by the direction of the hostler, and upon
being assured that it would be quite safe there.”[304]
“Mr. Justice Story once said that in the country towns of America it is
very common to leave chaises and carriages at inns under open sheds all
night, and also to leave stable doors open and unlocked; and that if,
under those circumstances, a horse or a chaise should be stolen, it
would deserve consideration how far the innkeeper would be liable,”[305]
said Mr. De Gex, my companion, who had looked inside a law-book or two.
“I fancy it has been considered,” I replied, “and the innkeeper has met
with little consideration, and is held bound to protect the property of
those whom he receives as his guests. In one instance, the driver put
his loaded sleigh in the wagon-house of the inn, where such things were
usually placed; and the doors of the shed having been broken open and
property stolen, the landlord was held bound to make good the loss,
without loss of time.[306] But Dr. Theophilus Parsons, who knows
something of these matters, says that if a horse or carriage is put in
an open shed with the owner’s consent or by his direction, the innkeeper
will not be liable for their loss, and that where this is usually done
and the owner of the horse knows the custom and gives no particular
instructions, it may be presumed that he consented and took the risk
upon himself.”[307]
“Suppose we inspect the stable and see what accommodation there is for
our equine friends.” We entered. “Rather risky place to put two city
horses in,” De Gex continued. “Look at the flooring. A nag of any
spirit, not accustomed to the place, might kick through it and break its
leg.”
“Well,” I said, “the innkeeper is bound to provide safe stabling for the
horses of his guest, and if any evil betide the animals from being
improperly tied, or the stalls being in bad repair, full compensation
may be recovered.[308] He is responsible from the moment he receives the
quadrupeds until they leave; even after the owner has paid his bill and
his man is harnessing them to go;[309] and, as a rule, the statutory
laws limiting the liability of hotel-keepers do not apply to horses or
carriages.”
“Your view is the one a lawyer (a man without a heart) might take of it,
but a merciful man is merciful to his beast and does not like to run the
chance of its being killed.”
“The tavern-keeper’s liability extends even to the death of the animals
in his care,”[310] I remarked.
“Still, one should himself exercise reasonable care and caution,”
returned De Gex. “I remember a gentleman, who kept his horse at an inn,
rode out one evening and on returning himself took it into the stable
and tied it up in the stall in which it had usually been kept. The next
morning the horse was found dead in the same stall, its head wedged fast
in the trough, which was made of a hollow beech log having a bulge in
the middle, thus rendering that part wider than the top. The poor beast
had evidently killed itself in trying to extricate its head. The owner
brought an action against the publican, but had to bear the loss, not
only of his horse but also of the suit.”[311]
“Yet I know that where a horse had been choked to death by its halter,
and it was proved that it was tied under the superintendence and
direction of the owner himself, and in reply the owner proved that the
stall in which it had been was in very bad condition, it was held that
the innkeeper could not give further evidence.[312] And when another
innkeeper agreed with the owner of a horse to entertain the man in
charge one day in every week, or oftener if he should chance to stop at
the inn with the horse, furnish the latter with provender and allow it
to be kept in a particular stall: no one but the man in charge took care
of the horse; yet on its being injured in its stall, the innkeeper was
held answerable.”[313]
“And look, besides, there are no proper partitions between the stalls,”
said my friend, “and some other nag might kick one of ours; and you know
that it was decided in the old country that under such circumstances the
publican would not be liable for the injuries so inflicted, unless it
could be proved that he did not take due and proper care in excluding
vicious and kicking horses.”[314]
“Hah!” I exclaimed. “But that case has since been doubted, and it can
scarcely be accepted as good law.[315] Well, what shall we do?”
“Let’s tell them to turn the nags into the field,” said De Gex.
“If you do, and they are lost, stolen or injured, we cannot look to our
host for recompense, unless Master Boniface himself be guilty of
negligence, as by putting them in a field where pits or ditches abound
or fences and gates are broken or open. If, however, he should put them
into the pasture of his own accord, he would be answerable;[316] for
then the field would be considered as part of the inn premises. Although
Story thinks that the latter rule should be qualified, as it is such a
common custom in America in the summer time to put horses in a pasture,
he says the implied consent of the guest may fairly be presumed, if he
knows the practice.”[317]
“Well, let us send them over to the other house, where the stabling
appears better, while we ourselves lodge here,” again suggested Mr. De
G.
“That might do,” I made answer; “for an innkeeper is bound to receive a
horse, even though the owner chooses to go elsewhere.[318] And it is
clearly settled that in the eyes of the law a man becomes a guest at a
place of public entertainment by having his horse there, though he
himself neither lodges nor takes refreshments there.”[319]
“But I thought that an innkeeper was not bound to take the goods of a
man who merely wishes to use the house as a place of deposit;[320] nor
liable for things so left there, except as an ordinary bailee.”[321]
“Oh, that rule only applies to dead things out of which the man can make
no profit; but with animals the innkeeper is chargeable, because he
makes something out of keeping them. And, as I said, it has been
frequently held that he is liable for the loss of a horse, although its
owner puts up at a different place. But there is some doubt.”[322]
“Will he also be liable for the carriage?” asked my companion.
“Yes, and for the harness as well; for the compensation paid for the
horses will extend the host’s responsibility to such articles. And the
owner will be able to sue for damages if anything happens to our nags,
although they have been hired by us.[323] If a servant brings his
master’s horse to an inn, and while there it is stolen, of course the
master can sue the innkeeper;[324] and for all such legal purposes the
hirer of goods will be deemed the owner’s servant.”
“Suppose a horse-thief stops at an inn and there loses his prize, can
the owner then sue the landlord?”
“No; he must, under those trying circumstances, look simply to the
person who first deprived him of his faithful nag,”[325] I replied.
“The other innkeeper may charge pretty well for the horses, if we stay
here ourselves,” suggested De Gex.
“In the good old days of yore he could not have done that, for
innkeepers were bound to ask only a reasonable price, to be calculated
according to the rates of the adjoining market, without getting anything
for litter;[326] and if they made a gross overcharge, the guests had
only to tender a reasonable sum, and have them indicted and fined for
extortion.[327] But I fear me those halcyon days have passed. Do you
know that if a man is beaten at an inn the proprietor is not answerable,
although if the man’s horse should be so treated, even if it were not
known who did it, the publican will be liable?”[328]
“That is queer law. Why is it?”
“Because in ages long since gone by an innkeeper’s liability was
confined to one’s _bona et catalla_, and injury to a man is not damage
to his _bona et catalla_.”
“Well, I am sure I don’t see what would damage his ‘bones and
cartilage,’ if a good beating did not. Let us join the ladies.”
“I think we had better, after that atrocious attempt at a pun,” I
replied. “Well said the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ‘a pun is
_prima facie_ an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies
utter indifference to, or sublime contempt for, his remarks, no matter
how serious.’”
We found our better halves had gone out for a walk. Knowing that their
feminine curiosity would soon bring them to a standstill we started in
pursuit, and speedily came up with them as they stood gazing at some
rose bushes in a pretty flower garden.
“Did you ever see such bea-u-ti-ful roses?” screamed Mrs. De Gex, whose
voice, when pitched in a high key, was as melodious as a peacock’s.
“And so many!” added Mrs. Lawyer.
“I am somewhat a believer in the doctrine of metempsychosis,” said Mr.
De Gex.
“What has such a horrid thing to do with roses?” asked his wife.
“Merely that, if it be true, I may have seen finer and more numerous
flowers long, long ago.”
“Explain,” I exclaimed.
“Well, when in another form I may, at the beginning of the Christian
era, have been present at the regatta near lovely Baiæ and seen the
whole surface of the Lucrine Sea strewn with these flowers, according to
custom; or I may have been present at some of old Nero’s banquetings,
when he caused showers of rose-leaves to be rained down upon the
assembled guests; or, in fact, I may have been at Heliogabalus’ dinner
party, when such heaps of these same flowers were flung over the
revelers that several were smothered to death. That frail beauty,
Cleopatra, was wont to spend immense sums on roses, and at one
entertainment, that she gave in honor of her friend Anthony, she had the
whole floor covered more than a yard deep.”
“How delightful!” chorused the ladies.
“The Sybarites used to sleep upon beds stuffed with rose-leaves. That
old tyrant Dionysius, at his revels, constantly reclined on a couch
made of the blossoms. Verres, with whom Cicero had the tussle, was
accustomed to travel through his province reclining gracefully on a
mattrass full of them; and not content with this, he had a wreath of
roses round his head and another around his neck, with leaves
intertwined. And Antiochus, when he wanted to be uncommonly luxurious,
would sleep in a tent of gold and silver upon a bed of these flowers.”
“Did they indulge in attar?”
“I cannot say, but at his parties, Nero--that champion fiddler of
Rome--would have his fountains flinging up rose-water; and while the
jets were pouring out the fragrant liquid, white rose-leaves were on the
ground, in the cushions on which the guests lay, hanging in garlands on
their noble brows, and in wreaths around their necks. The _couleur de
rose_ pervaded the dinner itself, and a rose pudding challenged the
appetites of the guests, while, to assist digestion, they indulged in
rose wine. Heliogabalus was so fond of this wine that he used to bathe
in it.”
“What a waste!” said my wife.
“Whose? That girl’s?” I asked.
“You horrid man!” returned my wife. “But I know you pretend to dislike
roses.”
“Yes,” I said, “if metempsychosis is correct, I must have been killed
two or three times during the Wars of the Roses. I believe, with the
ancient Aztecs, that sin and sorrow came into the world through the
first woman plucking a forbidden rose.”
“He is, perhaps, not quite so bad as the lady who had such a strong
antipathy to this queen of flowers that she actually fainted when her
lover approached her wearing an artificial one in his button-hole; nor
as good Queen Bess’s lady-in-waiting, who disliked the flower so much
that her cheek actually blistered when a white one was placed upon it as
she slept. He is most like Tostig of old,” continued my wife.
“He cannot smell a rose but pricks his nose
Against the thorn and rails against the rose.”
Our position changed and so did the subject.
* * * * *
The next day when we went over for our horses we found a most
interesting discussion going on between the landlord and a man of a
class somewhat too common in these hard times, an impecunious lawyer,
concerning the right of the former to detain the horse of the latter for
the hotel bill of the owner.
“You can’t do it,” said the poverty-stricken disciple of Coke. “No
innkeeper can detain the other goods and chattels of a guest for payment
of the expenses of a horse, nor a horse for the expenses of the guest.
You can only keep my horse for the price of its own meat, and that has
been paid for.[329] If a man brought several horses to your old inn,
each one could be detained only for its own keep, and not for that of
the others; and if you let the owner take away all but one, you could
not keep that one until your whole bill was paid, but you would have to
give it up on tender of the amount due for its keep.[330] Hullo!” he
added, as he saw me, “here’s a gentleman who knows all about such
things. “Is not what I state correct?” he coolly asked.
“Certainly,” I said, turning to the landlord. “Mr. Blackstone’s law is
better than his pay; though, perhaps, Mr. Story may be said to doubt his
last statement.”[331]
“But,” said Boniface, a short, fat man, made without any apparent neck
at all--only head and shoulders like a codfish--“but the rascal did not
pay me for the last time he put up his old beast here, and I’ll keep it
now till I am paid or till it dies, which latter event will probably
happen first to such a bag of bones.”
“You can’t do that, old boy,” said Mr. B., delightedly.
“He is right again,” I replied. “If you let a guest take away his horse,
unless, indeed, he merely takes it out for exercise, day by day, _animo
revertendi_,[332] it amounts to giving him credit and a relinquishment
of your right of lien, so that you can’t afterwards retake it. And even
if the man was to come back and run up another account for the keep of
his horse, although you might detain it for the latter debt, you could
not for the former.”[333]
“But have I no lien upon the horse of a guest? Besides, I did not let
him take it away. He went off with it at daybreak, before any one was
up, the villain,” said mine host, waxing more and more wrathy as the
thought of past grievances recurred to him.
“He, he, he!” laughed B. “You might have retaken it if you had been spry
enough, and then you might have kept it; but now it’s too late, too
late, too late, as the song says.”[334]
“Exactly so,” I added. “Of course, my dear sir, there is little doubt
but what you have a right to detain a horse, brought to you by a
traveler, for its keep.[335] And if you kept that old nag you would have
a perfect right to continue to charge for the food supplied from day to
day, while it remained in your possession, and that although Mr. B.
distinctly told you that he would not be responsible for anything
supplied to his horse; because otherwise your security would soon be
reduced to the value of an old hide and bones.[336] But then _cui
bono_?”
“What’s that?” asked the astonished innkeeper.
“I mean, what would you gain by the additional outlay of good fodder?” I
explained.
“Why, I would make the old thing work!” replied the man.
“No, indeed!” said Blackstone. “You would have no right to ride on my
horse, or use him for your own benefit in any way.”[337]
“You would have no more right to use it for your own pleasure and
benefit than a man who distrains a cow for rent has to enjoy the fruits
of her ruminations. You could only ride the horse for the purpose of
preserving its health by proper exercise,”[338] I remarked.
“I am dashed if I’d do that,” cried the publican, waxing fierce.
“You would have to do it,”[339] shrieked Blackstone, triumphantly.
“Well,” then roared the master of the establishment, “I’d sell the
blamed thing quick enough.”
“If you did you would get yourself into hot water, and have to pay me
the full value of the beast; for an innkeeper can’t sell a horse he
detains for its board without the consent of the owner.[340] Ho! ho!
ho!” laughed the little rascal.
The poor landlord looked at me with such a despairing glance--a look of
a dying duck in a thunder-storm--that I could scarce restrain my risible
faculties as I remarked:
“I am afraid your adversary is correct, and not even if a horse were to
eat its head off could you sell it, unless you chanced to live in London
or Exeter. Your only remedy would be to sue for the price of the food,
get judgment, and then sell.[341] You cannot sell a right of lien, or
transfer the property, without losing your right and rendering yourself
liable to an action. One must proceed by suit.”[342]
The landlord turned to the rascally attorney, and shaking his fist at
him, exclaimed: “Get out, and if ever you darken my door again--look
out!”
“Keep cool, sir, keep cool, the day is warm. Don’t shake your fist in my
face, sir. It is not the first time I’ve done the old chap,” added my
unworthy confrere, turning to us with a look of importance; “and it will
not be the last, unless I’ve read law for naught.”
“How did you take him in before?” I queried.
“Well, some years ago I was hard up--not the first, perhaps not the last
time I have been in that state--and I knew not how to get my team fed
for a week or two. So, believing that money had a considerable influence
with our friend here, I got a chap to run off with my ponies, bring them
here, and throw out some hints that it would be all right in a pecuniary
point of view if they could be kept in the stable for a few days until
the affair blew over. All went merry as a marriage bell. I advertised
for horses lost, stolen, or strayed, and after some three weeks happened
here and quite accidentally, you know, found my span. Of course mine
host wanted pretty good pay, but I talked to him like a father; told
him that I knew that if a traveler brings to an inn the horse of a third
person, the innkeeper has a perfect right to detain it for its keep;
that of course he was not bound to inquire whose horse it was;[343] that
that highly estimable and worthy occupant of the bench in days that are
no more, I mean Judge Coleridge, said that with reference to an
innkeeper’s lien there was no difference between the goods of a guest
and those of a third person brought by a guest.[344] This pleased the
old rascal. Then I pleaded poverty, but Shylock was unmoved; then I
assumed an appearance of anger at his keeping my horses and went away.”
“But how did that help you?” I asked impatiently, growing weary of a
story that was long enough for the ears of an antediluvian patriarch.
“Oh, I had not left the worthy’s house five minutes before I happened,
quite accidentally, you know, to meet the man who had taken the horses.
Back we came. Boniface admitted that he was the one who had brought my
ponies to the inn. Then said I: ‘Sir, this man has confessed that he
told you that he did not own the horses, that he had stolen them; you,
therefore, became a party to his crime and have no right to keep my
horses any longer for their charges. See--here is the law;’ and I showed
him Oliphant on Horses, page 129;[345] and the fellow at once caved in.
Ta-ta, Mr. Lawyer.”
And so off went the man to practice his knaveries and trickeries on some
other unfortunate members of the _genus homo_. The only consolation of a
virtuous man is that
“Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat.”
“Well,” said my friend, who had all this time been standing by, a silent
but not an unbenefited listener, “Well, it strikes me that the law
concerning innkeepers and horses needs what Lord Dundreary thought the
country did, that is to say, namely, to wit, improving!”
“True for you,” I replied. “For instance, until recently it was doubtful
whether an innkeeper who detains a horse as a pledge for its keep, can
detain also the saddle and bridle, or even the halter which fastens it
to the stall.[346] And where a man stopped with his horse at an inn
under suspicious circumstances, and the police ordered the innkeeper to
retain the animal, it was held that the poor landlord had no lien.[347]
And if a neighbor leaves his nag with an innkeeper to be fed and kept,
allowing him to use it at his pleasure, and a creditor of the owner
seize it for a debt, the poor publican has no lien for the animal’s
keep;[348] nor would he have, where he boards the horses of a stage
line, under a special agreement.”[349]
“What about a livery-stable keeper?” asked De Gex.
“Down in Georgia, it was held that he had a right of lien on horses and
buggies left in his keeping;[350] but everywhere else, it is considered
that he has no such lien, for the contract with him is that the owner is
to have the horse whenever required;[351] and the claim of a lien would
be inconsistent with the necessary enjoyment of the property.”[352]
“Suppose the livery man pays out money to a vet. for advice?”
“That would make no difference.[353] But if a man who is both an
innkeeper and a livery-stable keeper receives a horse, and does not say
he takes it in the latter capacity, he has all the responsibilities of
an innkeeper, as well as all his privileges.[354] On the other hand, if
an innkeeper receives horses and carriages on livery, the fact that the
owner on a subsequent day takes refreshment at the inn will not give the
innkeeper an innkeeper’s rights.[355] I was almost forgetting to say
that even a livery-stable keeper may have a lien by express
agreement;[356] and if he exercises any labor or trouble in the
improvement of the animals, he will have a lien for his charges.[357]
“Well, I rather fancy that the ladies will think we have not almost, but
altogether, forgotten them, and intend to pass another night here. Let
us be off.”