An inn-keeper is one who 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 situation in which they are fit to be received.2

Keeping a house openly for the entertainment and accommodation of travelers and others, for a reward, is keeping an inn, whether licensed or not, and whether or not liquors or wines are sold there.3

The business of an inn-keeper is viewed by the law as a public employment,4 and accordingly one of the distinguished characteristics of that business is the obligation to receive and entertain, as guests, all who choose to visit the house.5 In this lies the distinction between an inn-keeper and the keeper of a boarding house.6

1 Volume V, Subject 12.

2 Am. & Eng. Ency., Volume XVI, Note 707; Thompson vs. Lacy, 3 B. & Sed., 283, 5 E. C. L., 285.

3 State vs. Stone, 6 Vt., 295.

4 Hall vs. State, 4 Harr. (Del.), 132.

One of the essential characteristics of keeping an inn is that it shall be the regular business of the person so engaged and it is not sufficient that he sometimes furnished travelers with the accommodations of an inn;7 but it is not necessary that inn-keeping should be his exclusive occupation,8 nor does the fact that he is engaged in another kind of business, which he conducts in connection with his inn for the convenience or pleasure of his guests, impose on him the liabilities of an innkeeper with reference to such other business.9

The distinction as to the nature of the occupation, between an inn-keeper and the keeper of a private boarding house or lodging house, lies in this, that the latter is at liberty to choose his guests, while an innkeeper is pledged to entertain all travelers of good conduct and means of payment, and furnish them everything which they have occasion for as such travelers on their way.