“Perhaps not, but as rare old Ben Jonson remarked, ‘when I take the humor of a thing once, I am like a tailor’s needle—I go through,’ and a little more information on that important subject may prove useful to you some day.”
“If you will talk on that dry subject, kindly inform me why publicans have a lien at all,” said my friend.
“Well, you know that a lien is the right of a man to whom any chattel is given to detain it until some pecuniary demand upon or in respect of it has been satisfied by the owner, and as the law treats an innkeeper as a public servant, and imposes upon him certain duties—making him, for example, receive all guests who are willing and able to pay, and are unobjectionable on moral, pecuniary, or hygienic grounds, and bestow on the preservation of their goods an extraordinary amount of care—so, to compensate him for this obligation, the law gives him the power of detaining his guest’s goods, (except such as are in the visitor’s actual possession and custody, in his hand for example,) until he pays for the entertainment afforded, including, of course, remuneration for the care of those goods. The lien extends to all the goods and chattels of the guest, even those especially handed over to the host and placed by him apart from the personal goods of his visitor.”[363]
“Then, I suppose an innkeeper has a lien upon the goods of a guest only.”
“Exactly so; so that if he receive the person as a friend, or a boarder,[364] or under any special agreement,[365] or an arrangement to pay at a future time,[366] he has no lien upon the goods, for he has no responsibility with regard to them. In one case, however, it was decided that if a man came to an hotel as a guest, his subsequently arranging to board by the week would not alter the character in which he was originally received, nor take away the host’s right of lien.”[367]
“Suppose things are brought which the innkeeper is not bound to receive—what then?”
“Where he actually takes in goods for a guest, whether he were legally bound to do so or not, he is responsible for their safety, and so has a lien upon them.[368] But if anything is left with him, merely to take care of, by one who does not himself put up at the house, the poor innkeeper has no right to keep them until paid for his trouble;[369] unless, indeed, it is a horse, or other animal, out of the keep of which he can receive a benefit.[370] And you heard old Blackstone say, this A.M., that the proprietor is not bound to inquire whether or not the guest is the real owner of the goods;[371] and if the guest turns out a thief, still the true owner cannot get back his property without paying the charges upon it.[372] In Georgia, however, it has been held that the innkeeper has no lien against the true owner, except for the charges upon the specific article on which the lien is claimed.”[373]
“But supposing he really knows that the guest is not the owner?” said my companion.
“Then he has no lien. Broadwood, the celebrated piano manufacturer, loaned a piano to M. Hababier, who was staying at a hotel. The court held that, as it was furnished to the guest for his temporary use by a third party and the innkeeper knew it belonged to such party, and as Hababier had not brought it to the place as his own, either upon his coming to or while staying at the inn, the proprietor had no lien upon it.[374] But of course, if a servant, or an agent, in the course of his employment, come to an inn and runs up a bill, the proprietor has a lien upon his master’s goods in the servant’s custody.”[375]
“How long does this right last?”