The importance of this rule in determining present duty will justify another statement in the language of a popular Encyclopædia:—
“One of the incidents of an innkeeper is, that he is bound to open his house to all travellers, without distinction, and has no option to refuse such refreshment, shelter, and accommodation as he possesses, provided the person who applies is of the description of a traveller, and able and ready to pay the customary hire, and is not drunk or disorderly or tainted with infectious disease.”
And the Encyclopædia adds:—
“As some compensation for this compulsory hospitality, the innkeeper is allowed certain privileges.”[193]
Thus is the innkeeper under constraint of law, which he must obey; “bound to take in all travellers and wayfaring persons”; “nor can he impose unreasonable terms upon them”; and liable to an action, and even to an indictment, for refusal. Such is the law.
With this peremptory rule opening the doors of inns to all travellers, without distinction, to the extent of authorizing not only an action, but an indictment, for the refusal to receive a traveller, it is plain that the pending bill is only declaratory of existing law, giving to it the sanction of Congress.
PUBLIC CONVEYANCES.
Public Conveyances, whether on land or water, are known to the law as common carriers, and they, too, have obligations, not unlike those of inns. Common carriers are grouped with innkeepers, especially in duty to passengers. Here again the learned Judge is our authority:—
“The first and most general obligation on their part is to carry passengers, whenever they offer themselves and are ready to pay for their transportation. This results from their setting themselves up, like innkeepers and common carriers of goods, for a common public employment, on hire. They are no more at liberty to refuse a passenger, if they have sufficient room and accommodation, than an innkeeper is to refuse suitable room and accommodations to a guest.”[194]