exclusion the plaintiff held a first-class ticket over the defendant's road from Corinth, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, and her behavior while in the car was lady-like and inoffensive.1 The defendant pleaded that the plaintiff was a notorious and public courtesan, addicted to the use of profane language and offensive habits of conduct in public places; that the ladies' car was set apart exclusively for the use of genteel ladies of good character and modest deportment, from which the plaintiff was rightfully excluded because of her bad character. HAMMOND, District Judge, charged the jury that the same principles of law were to be applied to women as men in determining whether the exclusion was lawful or not; that the social penalties of exclusion of unchaste women from hotels, theatres, and other public places could not be imported into the law of common carriers; that they had a right to travel in the streets and on the public highways, and other people who travel must expect to meet them in such places; and, as long as their conduct was unobjectionable while in such places, they could not be excluded. The carrier is bound to carry good, bad, and indifferent, and has nothing to do with the morals of his passengers, if their behavior be proper while travelling. Neither can the carrier use the character for chastity of his female passengers as a basis of classification, so that he may put all chaste women, or women who have the reputation of being chaste, into one car, and those known or reputed to be unchaste in another car. Such a regulation would be contrary to public policy, and unreasonable. It would put every woman purchasing a railroad ticket on trial for her virtue before the conductor as her judge, and, in case of mistake, would lead to breaches of the peace. It would practically exclude all sensible and sensitive women from travelling at all, no matter how virtuous, for fear they might be put into or unconsciously occupy the wrong car.2 The police power of the carrier is sufficient protection to other passengers, and he can remove all persons, men or women, whose conduct at the time is annoying, or whose reputation for misbehavior and indecent demeanor in public is so notoriously bad that it furnishes a reasonable ground to believe that the person will be offensive or annoying to others travelling in the same car; and this is as far as the carrier has any right to go. He can no more classify women according to their reputation for chastity, or want of it, than he can so grade the Verdict for the plaintiff. men. 1 Part of the statement of facts and part of the charge are omitted. — ED. REGINA v. SPRAGUE. SURREY QUARTER SESSIONS, ENGLAND, 1899. [63 Justice of the Peace, 233.] AT the Surry Quarter Sessions, held at Kingston-on-Thames, before Mr. George Cave, chairman, and a full bench of magistrates, Martha Jane Sprague, the wife of Sidney Sprague, was indicted for that she, being the keeper of a common inn for the reception and accommodation of travellers, called the Hautboy Hotel, at Ockham, in the county of Surrey, did, on the 27th of Oct. 1898, without sufficient cause and not regarding her duty as an innkeeper, wilfully and unlawfully neglect and refuse to supply Florence Wallace Harberton, wife of Viscount Harberton, of 108 Cromwell Road, London, then being a traveller, with victuals, which she then required, and for which she was willing to pay. The defendant pleaded "Not guilty." Avory and Lord Coleridge addressed the jury. The Chairman, in summing up, said that an innkeeper could not refuse to supply a traveller with food and lodging without some lawful excuse. Here Mrs. Sprague did not say that she had a right to dictate to Lady Harberton what dress she was to wear. Therefore the question whether ladies should or should not wear "rational dress" was not in dispute. An innkeeper could not refuse to supply food because of the particular shape of the dress of the traveller. The only question therefore was whether there was a refusal to supply food in a decent and proper place. The innkeeper could select the room provided it was a decent and proper room. Nor, in his opinion, was a guest entitled to have a room exactly to his or her taste. The jury must judge by the requirement of ordinary and reasonable persons. The learned chairman then referred to the evidence, and asked the jury to consider whether the bar parlour was a decent and proper room for a guest to have lunch in and, further, whether the bar parlour was not to all intents and purposes part of the hotel. The jury retired to consider their verdict, and, after a short deliberation, they returned a verdict of "Not guilty." 1 See, also, Prendergast v. Compton, 8 C. & P. 454. .ED. ATWATER v. SAWYER. SUPREME COURT OF MAINE, 1884. [76 Me. 539.1] HASKELL, J. The plaintiffs applied for dinner at the defendant's inn and were refused it. For damages suffered thereby this action is brought. Soldiers in uniform came to the defendant's inn, and behaved in a disorderly manner, and threatened to turn him and his house into the street. Defendant offered to prove that the plaintiffs were refused entertainment because they wore the same uniform, indicating that they belonged to the same band, and claimed that he could not discriminate between them and the disorderly soldiers. The evidence was excluded. The defendant was not required by law to furnish entertainment for intoxicated or disorderly persons. If he had reason to suppose that the plaintiffs belonged to the same band of disorderly soldiers, who had threatened to despoil his house, and that they were evil disposed towards him, or had conspired with the disorderly soldiers to harm his house, or guests, or if they were intoxicated, or disorderly persons, then he would have been justified in refusing them entertainment, and the question should have been submitted to the jury; but the evidence excluded falls short of what would be a justification in the premises, and for that reason was properly excluded. The requested instruction that the defendant was bound to provide food, sufficient for the demands of ordinary travel and no more, was rightly withheld, because the evidence does not tend to prove a compliance with that rule. It goes so far only as to show the want of food, without sufficient reason or excuse. The instructions of the presiding justice taken together hold that the evidence of lack of food is not sufficient in this case to excuse the defendant, as surely it is not. Nor was the evidence excluded sufficient even to tend to prove a legal excuse for the want of food to furnish entertainment to the plaintiffs. The defendant kept an inn. His failure to procure the license required by law does not relieve him from his obligation to travellers. Norcross v. Norcross, 53 Maine, 163. The facts of this case do not require that, the rules of law so strenuously contended for by the learned counsellors for the defendant should be applied. ED. 1 Only one opinion is printed; the court was unanimous in the result reached. GODWIN v. CAROLINA TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH COMPANY. SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1904. [48 S. E. 636.] CLARK, C. J. The exception to the verification of the amendment to the answer is without merit. Since Phifer v. Ins. Co., 123 N. C. 410, 31 S. E. 716, the General Assembly has amended section 258 of the Code by providing (Laws 1901, p. 854, c. 610) that when a corporation is a party the verification of any pleading may be made by a "managing or local agent thereof" as well as by an officer, who alone, formerly, was authorized to make verification in such cases. This is an application for a mandamus to compel the defendant to put a telephone, with necessary fixtures and appliances, in the dwelling house of the plaintiff in the town of Kinston, and admit her to all the privileges accorded to other subscribers to the telephone exchange operated by the defendant in said town. It was admitted by the plaintiff that "she is a prostitute, and keeps a bawdy house within the corporate limits of the town of Kinston, and desires to have said telephone put in said bawdy house." The court being of opinion that the plaintiff was not entitled to a mandamus for such purpose, the plaintiff took a nonsuit and appealed. There was no error. A mandamus lies to compel a telephone company to place telephones and furnish telephonic facilities, without discrimination, for those who will pay for the same and abide the reasonable regulations of the company. This is well settled. State v. Nebraska Telephone Co. (Neb.), 22 N. W. 237, 52 Am. Rep. 404; 27 Am. & Eng. Enc. (2d Ed.) 1022; 19 Am. & Eng. Enc. (2d Ed.) 877; Joyce on Electric Law, § 1036, and numerous cases cited by all these. In Telegraph Co. v. Telephone Co., 61 Vt. 241, 17 Atl. 1071, 5 L. R. A. 161, 15 Am. St. Rep. 893, it is said: "A telephonic system is simply a system for the transmission of intelligence and news. It is, perhaps, in a limited sense, and yet in a strict sense, a common carrier. It must be equal in its dealings with all." That case cites many authorities, which are, indeed, uniform, that the telephone business, like all other services fixed with a public use, must be operated without discrimination, affording "equal rights to all, special privileges to none." Telephones" are public vehicles of intelligence, and they who own or control them can no more refuse to perform impartially the functions that they have assumed to discharge than a railway company, as a common carrier, can rightfully refuse to perform its duty to the public,” is said in Telephone Co. v. Telegraph Co., 66 Md. 399, at page 414, 7 Atl. 811, 59 Am. Rep. 167, which is another very instructive and wellreasoned case upon the same subject. Telephone companies are placed by our corporation act on the same footing, as to public uses, as rail roads and telegraphs, and the corporation commission is authorized to regulate their charges and assess their property for taxation. But while it is true there can be no discrimination where the business is lawful, no one can be compelled, or is justified, to aid in unlawful undertakings. A telegraph company should refuse to send libellous or obscene messages, or those which clearly indicate the furtherance of an illegal act or the perpetration of some crime. But recently in New York the telephone and telegraph instruments were taken out of "pool rooms which was used for the purpose of selling bets on horse races. "Keeping a bawdy house" was an indictable offence at common law, and is still so in this state. State v. Calley, 104 N. C. 858, 10 S. E. 455, 17 Am. St. Rep. 704; State v. Webber, 107 N. C. 962, 12 S. E. 598, 22 Am. St. Rep. 920. One who leases a house for the purpose of its being kept as a bawdy house, or with the knowledge that it will be used for that purpose is indictable. 9 A. & F. Enc. (2d Ed.) 527. A mandamus will never issue to compel a respondent to aid in acts which are unlawful. Wiedwald v. Dodson, 95 Cal. 450, 30 Pac. 580; Gruner v. Moore, 6 Colo. 526; Chicot County v. Kruse, 47 Ark. 80, 14 S. W. 469; People v. Hyde Park, 117 Ill. 462, 6 N. E. 33. It is argued that a common carrier would not be authorized to refuse to convey the plaintiff because she keeps a bawdy house. Nor is the defendant refusing her a telephone on that ground, but because she wishes to place the telephone in a bawdy house. A common carrier could not be compelled to haul a car used for such purpose. If the plaintiff wished to have the phone placed in some other house used by her, or even in a house where she resided, but not kept as a bawdy house, she would not be debarred because she kept another house for such unlawful and disreputable purpose. It is not her character, but the character of the business at the house where it is sought to have the telephone placed, which required the court to refuse the mandamus. In like manner, if a common carrier knew that passage was sought by persons who are travelling for the execution of an indictable offence, or a telegraph company that a message was tendered for a like purpose, both would be justified in refusing; and certainly when the plaintiff admits that she is carrying on a criminal business in the house where she seeks to have the telephone placed the court will not, by its mandamus, require that facilities of a public nature be furnished to a house used for that business. For like reason a mandamus will not lie to compel a water company to furnish water, or a light company to supply light, to a house used for carrying on an illegal business. The courts will enjoin or abate, not aid a public nuisance. The further consideration of this matter is not required on this application for a mandamus, but should be upon an indictment and trial of the plaintiff for the violation of law so brazenly avowed by her. No error.1 1 Compare Pullman P. C. Co. v. Bales, 80 Tex. 311, with Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Ferguson, 57 Ind. 495.- ED. |