Hotel register

“ In New York, the law is very similar, [188] being to the effect that the hotel-keeper shall not be liable for loss of money, jewels, ornaments, or valuables, when he shall have provided a safe for the custody of such property, and shall have posted a notice to that effect in the room occupied by the guest, and the guest shall have neglected to deposit such property in the safe. ”

“ One of my Lords said that he agreed in the opinion that there is no obligation on a guest at an inn to lock his bedroom door; but the fact of the guest having the means of securing himself and choosing not to use them is one which, with the other circumstances of the case, should be left to the jury. The weight of it must, of course, depend upon the state of society at the time and place; what would be prudent at a small hotel in a small town might be the extreme of imprudence at a large hotel in a city like Bristol, where probably three hundred bedrooms were occupied by people of all sorts. ”

“ You need not trouble yourself about good air or bad air at the Auditorium: the house is ventilated automatically, by machinery. Among other modern improvements is a letter chute which extends to the top of the house. Your letters from any floor drop into a locked United States post-office box, opened at intervals by the official carrier.
There are four hundred and fifty rooms. As hotel men usually reckon “about one and a half guests to a room” there is accommodation for six hundred people. Charge for rooms: European plan, $2 to $5 per day; American plan, $4 to $6 per day. ”

“ Without prejudice to any other liability or right of his with respect thereto, the proprietor of an hotel shall not as an innkeeper be liable to make good to any guest of his any loss of or damage to, or have any lien on, any vehicle or any property left therein, or any horse or other live animal or its harness or other equipment. ”

“ It only means that the hotels are improving. The truth is that as the typical old-fashioned hotel was built and conducted in America, with the main entrance opening directly from the street into the large paved lobby, where men congregated at all hours of the day to talk politics and to spit, where the porters banged and trundled luggage, and whither, through the door opening to one side, came the clamour of the bar-room, it was out of the question that women should frequent that common entrance. ”

“ The Supreme Court of Tennessee decided that an innkeeper was not liable for the clothing of a boarder stolen from his room, without the former’s fault, although he would be for that of a guest; [393] and the judge gave as his reason for making the distinction that a passenger or wayfaring man may be an entire stranger in the place, and must put up and lodge at the inn to which his day’s journey may bring him, and so it is important that he should be protected by the most stringent{161} rules of law enforcing the liability of hotel-keepers ”

“ There is no implied contract that one to whom a particular room has been given shall retain it so long as he chooses to pay for it. [75] You pay your money, but you don’t take your choice.”
“But I liked the room so much,” said Mr. Complaining Grumbler.
“It matters not. The proprietor is not bound to comply with your caprices. [76] When you go to an hotel you have only a mere easement of sleeping in one room, and eating and drinking in another, as Judge Maule once remarked.” ”

“ I hastened to reply, “if you will so accept it.”
“Then I would ask,” continued my interrogator, “must a man be a certain length of time at an hotel before he is entitled to the privileges of a guest?”
“Oh, dear, no! Merely purchasing temporary refreshment at an inn makes the purchaser a guest and renders the innkeeper liable for the safety of the goods he may have with him, [121] if he is a traveler.”
“But who is a traveler?”
“One who is absent from his home, whether on pleasure or business. [122] A townsman or neighbor, who is actually traveling, may be a guest. ”

“ Section 201 (c) defines the phrase "affect commerce" as applied to the above establishments. It first declares that "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" affects commerce per se. Restaurants, cafeterias, etc., in class two affect [p248] commerce only if they serve or offer to serve interstate travelers or if a substantial portion of the food which they serve or products which they sell have "moved in commerce." ”

“ Oh, of course, the everything is to be taken not only cum grano salis but with a whole cellar full of that condiment. For instance, the landlord is not bound to provide clothes or wearing apparel for{19} his guest. [39] But to proceed with our subject. Best, J., tried his hand—a good one, too—at definition-making, and declared an inn or hotel to be a house, the owner of which holds out that he will receive all travelers and sojourners who are willing to pay a price adequate to the sort of accommodation provided, and who come in a state in which they are fit to be received. ”

“ In the hotels and lodging houses every arrangement is made to keep each guest or party of guests as separate as possible from all the rest. There are no public tables or public drawing rooms. Each party, on its arrival at the hotel, takes a suit of rooms, consisting, at least, of a sitting room and bed room, and every thing that they require is served to them separately there, just as if there were no other guests in the house. ”

“ Occasionally the forest trees have been left, and the galleries built around them. Included in the premises are two churches, a gambling-house, a couple of country stores, and a post-office. There are none of the shops common at watering-places for the sale of fancy articles, and, strange to say, flowers are not systematically cultivated, and very few are ever to be had. The hotel has a vast dining-room, besides the minor eating-rooms for children and nurses, a large ballroom, and a drawing-room of imposing dimensions. Hotel and cottages together, it is said, can lodge fifteen hundred guests. ”

“ Nothing could well be more paltry, dishonest and irritating than such a system, for even the seaside lodging-house keepers’ extras are not nearly so annoying. Fortunately the better class of hotels have abolished the system altogether. You know what you have to pay, and even if you feel that the old extras are added in, that is not half so irritating as the old system.
One of the strangest things that I have noted in my hotel experience is the inferiority of the Temperance Hotel. ”

“ To understand the spirit of management which could issue such instructions to its employees in the face of the opportunity to exploit the public, as most hotels do and so throw the whole cost of wages upon the patron, it is necessary to consider other sections of the Code treating of professional hospitality.
"Hotel Statler is operated primarily for the benefit and convenience of its guests. Without guests there could be no Hotel Statler. These are simple Facts easily understood. ”

“ In Wisconsin, it was held that the retention by a guest of money or valuables upon his person was not such exclusive control as to exonerate an innkeeper from liability, if the loss was not induced by the negligence or misconduct of the guest,” [116] remarked one who knew whereof he affirmed.
“An hotel-keeper is of course liable for the conduct of another guest, placed in a room already occupied, without the consent of the occupant. ”

“ I have hitherto forborne to give the names of hotels, because it might look like surreptitious advertising; and John Smith is above that sort of thing. But, it might be urged, why not mention the names of the good hotels, that travelers who read this work may know where to stay when they visit such cities as I mention? One reason is, this is no traveler’s guide; and another is, that an hotel that was comfortable and well-conducted two or three years ago, may have changed proprietors, and become quite the reverse by this time. ”

“ I remarked, “unless, indeed, you were a naturalist.”
“I think,” continued our traveled friend, “that one never feels at home in an European hotel. You never know your landlord or your fellow-sojourners; the table d’hôte in the grand dining-halls prevents all intercourse between the guests; they never have a smoking-room, a billiard-room, a bar-room, or a bath-room; if you want to do ‘tumbies’ you are furnished with a regular old tub.” ”

“ She can save money, for she will have better pay in the linen-room. She will also have better food, and will learn something of the executive management of the hotel. Naturally, she will see more of the proprietor or the manager, and will learn his ideas and principles, which knowledge may be useful to her in later years. Time brings about many changes, and hotels change proprietors, as well as housekeepers and managers. Often, when a new manager makes his appearance, he will bring his housekeeper or linen-room woman with him ”

“ 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. ”

“ The court held that a Pullman car is not a common inn—that it does not accommodate persons indiscriminately—does not furnish victual and lodging, but only lodging—affords no accommoda{77}tion but a berth and bed, and a place and conveniences for toilet purposes—does not receive pay for caring, nor undertake to care, for the goods of travelers; but the accommodation afforded is the result of an express contract, and that the liabilities of innkeepers should not be extended to others. ”

“ Of these old-fashioned hotels,—barbarous relics of another day,—few are to be found now, and, though existing in reality, are being fast robbed of their clientièle, which demand something more in the way of conveniences—with no diminution of comforts—than it were possible to get in the two or three private houses thrown into one, and dubbed by the smugly respectable title of "Private Hotel." ”

“ And it has been held that a public hotel at a watering place possessing medicinal springs, and opened only during the summer and fall for the accommodation of visitors in search of health and pleasure, is, in fact, only a boarding-house, the visitors not being guests for a day, night, or week, but lodgers or boarders for a season. ”

“ What hotel should she go to? If she told a cabman to drive to an hotel, any hotel, what would he do--or say? He might drive to something dreadfully expensive, and not at all the quiet sort of thing she required. Finally she decided that even for an hotel she must look round, and that meanwhile she would "book" her luggage at Waterloo. She told the porter to take it to the booking-office, and it was only after a disconcerting moment or so that she found she ought to have directed him to go to the cloak-room. ”

“ Another judge says it is a public house of entertainment for all who choose to visit it as guests without any previous agreement as to the time of their stay or the terms of payment. [41] The judges have, also, got off definitions of the word ‘innkeeper.’ It has been said that every one who makes it his business to entertain travelers and passengers and provide lodging and necessaries for them and their horses and attendants, is a common innkeeper. ”

“ The chief distinction between a boarding-house and an inn, and the one from which all others naturally flow, is that the keeper of a boarding-house can choose his own guests, admitting some and rejecting others, as to him in his discretion or according to his whims and humors may seem best; while an innkeeper is obliged to entertain all travelers of good conduct, and possessed of means of payment, who choose to stop at his house, and those who do stay he must provide with all they have occasion for while on their way. ”

“ I said, “of course, simply ordering goods to be placed in a particular room is not such a taking under one’s own care as to absolve an innkeeper from his responsibility. [113] I recollect a case where a traveler, on arriving, requested his impedimenta, as old Cæsar used to say, to be taken to the commercial room; they were, and they were stolen, and the innkeeper was held bound to recoup the man, although he proved that the usual practice of the house was to place the luggage in the guest’s room, and not in the commercial room, unless an express order was given to the contrary. ”

“ The advertisement stated that 'the keys of the hotel, when complete, will be delivered to the fortunate possessor of the ticket drawn against its number,' and that '$100 will be given for the best plan of an elegant and convenient hotel or inn, with hot and cold baths, stable,' etc. ”

“ With the exception of the Washington street frontage and about 100 feet fronting on Avery street, which will be used for stores, the entire building will be devoted to the purposes of a first-class commercial hotel. On the first floor will be the office, reading-room, large public dining-room and buffet. In the basement, under the corner of Haymarket place and Avery street, there will be a rathskeller, entered both from the hotel and from the street, with the kitchens, serving-rooms, etc., in the rear, under the hotel lobby. ”