a place appointed for the entertainment and relief of travellers.

Inns are licensed and regulated by justices of the peace, who oblige the landlord to enter into recognizances for keeping good order. If a person who keeps a common inn, refuses to receive a traveller into his house as a guest, or to find him victuals and lodging on his tendering a reasonable price for them, he is liable to an action of damages, and may be indicted and fined at the king's suit. The rates of all commodities sold by innkeepers, according to our ancient laws, may be inflicted; and innkeepers not selling their hay, oats, beans, &c., and all manner of victuals, at reasonable prices, without taking anything for litter, may be fined and imprisoned, &c. by 21 Jac. I. c. 21.

Where an innkeeper harbours thieves, persons of infamous character, or suffers any disorders in his house, or sets up a new inn where there is no need of one, to the hinderance of ancient and well governed inns, he is indictable and fineable; and by statute, such inn may be suppressed. Action upon the case lies against any innkeeper, if a theft be committed on his guest by a servant of the inn, or any other person not belonging to the guest; though it is otherwise where the guest is not a traveller, but one of the same town or village, for there the innkeeper is not chargeable; nor is the matter of a private tavern answerable for a robbery committed on his guest; it is said, that even though the travelling guest does not deliver his goods, &c., into the innkeeper's possession, yet if they are stolen, he is chargeable. An innkeeper is not answerable for anything out of his inn, but only for such as are within it; yet, where he of his own accord puts the guest's horse to graze, and the horse is stolen, he is answerable, he not having the guest's orders for putting such horse to graze. The innkeeper may justify the stopping of the horse, or other thing of his guest, for his reckoning, and may retain the same till it be paid. Where a person brings his horse to an inn, and leaves him in the stable, the innkeeper may detain him till such time as the owner pays for his keeping; and if the horse eats out as much as he is worth, after a reasonable appraisement made, he may sell the horse and pay himself; but when a guest brings several horses to an inn, and afterwards takes them all away except one, this horse so left may not be sold for payment of the debt for the others; for every horse is to be sold, only to make satisfaction for what is due for his own meat.

Inns. Our colleges of municipal or common law professors and students, are called inns: the old English word for houses of noblemen, bishops, and others of extraordinary note, being of the same signification with the French word hotels.

Inns of Court are so called, as some think, because the students there are to serve and attend the courts of judicature; or else, because anciently these colleges received none but the sons of noblemen, and better sort of gentlemen, who were here to be qualified to serve the king in his court; as Fortescue affirms. And, in his time, he says, there were about 2000 students in the inns of court and chancery, all of whom were filii nobilium, or gentlemen born. But this custom has gradually fallen into disuse; so that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke does not reckon above 1000 students, and the number at present is very considerably less; for which Judge Blackstone assigns the following reasons. 1. Because the inns of chancery, being now almost totally filled by the inferior branches of the profession, are neither commodious nor proper for the resort of gentlemen of any rank or figure; so that there are very rarely any young students entered at the inns of chancery. 2. Because in the inns of court all sorts of regimen and academical superintendence, either with regard to morals or studies, are found impracticable, and therefore entirely neglected. Lastly, because persons of birth and fortune, after having finished their usual courses at the universities, have seldom leisure or resolution sufficient to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new place of instruction; wherefore few gentlemen now resort to the inns of court, but such for whom the knowledge of practice is absolutely necessary in such as are intended for the profession.

Our inns of court, justly famed for the production of men of learning in the law, are governed by masters, principals, benchers, stewards, and other officers; and have public halls for exercises, readings, &c., which which the students are obliged to attend and perform for a certain number of years, before they can be admitted to plead at the bar. These societies have not, however, any judicial authority over their members; but instead of this they have certain orders among themselves, which have by consent the force of laws. For lighter offences persons are only excommunicated, or put out of commons; for greater, they lose their chambers, and are expelled the college; and when once expelled out of one society, they are never received by any of the others. The gentlemen in these societies may be divided into benchers, outer-barristers, inner-barristers, and students.

The four principal inns of court, are the Inner Temple and Middle Temple, heretofore the dwelling of the Knights Templars, purchased by some professors of the common law about 300 years ago; Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn, anciently belonging to the earls of Lincoln and Gray. The other inns are the two Sergeants Inns.

Inns of Chancery were probably so called, because anciently inhabited by such clerks as chiefly studied the forming of writs, which regularly belonged to the curitors, who are officers of chancery.

The first of these is Thavies Inn, begun in the reign of Edward III. and since purchased by the society of Lincoln's Inn. Beside this, we have New Inn, Symond's Inn, Clement's Inn, Clifford's Inn, anciently the house of the Lord Clifford; Staple Inn, belonging to the merchants of the staple; Lion's Inn, anciently a common inn with the sign of the lion; Furnival's Inn, and Bernard's Inn.

These were heretofore preparatory colleges for younger students; and many were entered here, before they were admitted into the inns of court. Now they are mostly taken up by attorneys, solicitors, &c.

They all belong to some of the inns of court, who formerly used to send yearly some of their barristers to read to them.