APPENDIX TO 
assertions he had made in his 
work. 
The Attorney-General for his 
client, expressed himself satisfied 
with the apology, and as the ob- 
ject was only the vindication of 
character, a verdict was taken for 
the plaintiff.— Damages 40s. 
-COMMERCIAL CAUSES. 
Burgess v. Clements.—This was 
an action tried before Mr. Baron 
Richards, at the Jast Oxford As- 
sizes, by a traveller against the 
landlady of the Three Cups Inn, 
in that city, to recover the value 
of three boxes of Birmingham 
trinkets, which the plaintiff ya- 
lued at 6007. or 700/. and which 
were stolen from a room in the 
inn, while the plaintiff was there 
asa guest. The facts of the case 
were these:—The plaintiff had 
been in the habit of frequenting 
the defendant’s house: there was 
@ common travellers’ room, but 
the plaintiff, on this occasion, 
wished to have a private room, 
for the purpose of receiving cus- 
tomers who might come to pur- 
chase his warés, and asked for a 
particular room up stairs for this 
urpose. The landlady shewed 
im into a private room, the door 
of which opened into the gateway, 
and the windows of which could 
be looked into from the street: 
she gave him the key of the room 
_ to lock it when he went out, and 
advised him to bolt the door: the 
Joss happened at night ; the plain- 
tiff had a candle in his room, but 
the curtains of the windows were. 
down. When the defendant’s son 
left him, he was packing up his 
gore he had been out two hours 
efore the loss was discovered ; 
CHRONICLE. 295° 
when he went out he was not’ 
sure that he even shut the door; 
the key was found in it, the de-’ 
fendant went into the room after 
the plaintiff went out, and put 
out the candle, which he had lett: 
burning: the defendant did not ob-_ 
serve then whether the boxes were 
there. Underthese circumstances’ 
the learned judge left it to the 
jury, that an innkeeper was prima 
facie responsible for the goods of 
his guest; but the guest might 
discharge him from that liability. 
by his own conduct, and left it to 
them whether the present plaintiff 
had not done so; the Jury being 
of that opinion, found their verdict 
for the defendant. 
Mr. Jervis obtained a rule nist 
last term, to set aside this verdict. 
and grant a new trial upon the 
authority of the 4th Resolution in 
Calye’s case, 8 Rep. 65, which 
declares “an innkeeper bound in 
law to keep his guest’s goods and 
chattels safe, without any stealing 
or purloining ; and it isno excuse 
for the innkeeper to say, that he 
delivered the guest the key of the 
chamber in which he is lodged, and 
that heleft thechamber door open ; 
but he ought to keep the goods 
and chattels of his guest there in 
safety.” . 
After some pleadings, Lord EI- 
lenborough said, we cannot see 
any ground for impeaching the- 
finding of the jury in this case, 
although the facts of thecase might 
have been commented on more at 
large by the learned Judge than 
appears from this report, and he 
might have availed himself more 
decidedly of the rights of his own 
province in laying down the law. 
But the question is, whether the 
Jury have rightly exercised their 
