The Sun.
London, England, 1826-01-13 00:00:00

LAW INTELLEGENCE.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, JAN. 12.
(Before the Lord Chief Justice ABBOTT and a Common

Jaky.)
JOSEPH li:WAT.TOM.
This waN an action brought by .the plaintif, Mr. Joseph,
who'keeps the Imperial Hotel at Cheltenham, against the de-
fendant, Mrs. Walton, a lady residing in. Gower-street, Bed-
fonl-square, for the purpose of recovering a sum of 421. I Is. ttd,
being the amount of various articles supplied to her son, Mr.
John Walton, a minor, during his stay at Cheltenhnn. The
defendant pleaded that she was not liable, and thereupon issue
was joined. " •

The circumstances which gave rise to this action appeared
from the evidence to be of the following nature. In Novem-
ber, 1823, the eon of thedefendnnt, then only 19 years of age,
resided for some time at the plaintiff's hotel in Cheltenham.—
A few days before he was ping to leave it, he delivered to the
plaintiff a letter from his mother, wherein she desired the
-plaintiff to send her the amount of her son's bill, which she
promised to pay into the hands of any bankers which he might
appoint in London. As the defendant in that letter gave sa-
tisfactory references for her responsibility to a person living in
Cheltenham, the plaintiff did not send in his bill to her until his
brother, Mr. i ellen Joseph, whom he commissioned to receive
it, had occasion to go to London. Mr. Mitchell Joseph called on
the defendant in Gower-street, who, after a short conversation
with her son, discharged that bill by a check on her banker.
As he was leaving the room, the defendant's son followed him,
and said to him in the door-way, and as the witness believed
in the hearing of his mother " Good day, Sir, I shall soon
see you at your brother's house in Cheltenham." On the 23d
of May in the next year, the young man went down to Chel-
tenham with Mr. Beaumont, a Member of Parliament, and
drove up to the plaintiff's hotel in a carriage and four. lie
remained there for six weeks, and niight have remained there
much longer, had not the plaintiff in the month of July re-
ceived a letter from defendant's mother, stating that she had
learned that her son was staying at his hotel in Cheltenham—
that he was there against her will, and that she would not be
responsible for any debts that he might contract. At the time
this letter reached the plaintiff; the defendant's son had con-
tracted at his house a bill of 421. 1 ls. lid., which was made up
of a charge for board and lodgings for six weeks, at 31. a week,
and several items for dinners, with champagne and . claret,
which the young man had given to his friends. The plaintiff
sent in this bill to the defendant; and in consequence of her
refusing to pay it, brought the present action.
Mr. ScantETT, for the plaintiff, contended, that the de-
fendant was liable to pay this bill, ai she must have been aware
that her son was living at the plaintiff'. house at Cheltenham
beffire she wrote her last letter to the plaintiff: He likewise
urged that there was an implied contract on her part to pay any
hills which her son might contract at the plaintiff's house dur-
ing the minority, in the conversation which she had held
with the defendant's broths: in Gower-street, when she paid
the first bill.

Mr. G RIMY, for the defendant, denied the existence of any
such implied contract as that upon which the plaintiff's counsel
insisted, and contended, that if tradesmen would give young
men, of the tender age of the defendant's son, credit for duck
luxurious articles as those in which it had appeared that he had
indulged, it must be at their own risk, and not at the expence of
their friends anti guardians.
The Loon CHIEF JUSTICE, in summing up the case to the
jury, left it for them to say whether the defendant's son had or
bad not gone to the plaintiff's hotel at Cheltenham without the
knowledge of his mother. If. they should he of opinion that he
had gone there without her knowledge, they would find a ver-
dict for the defendant ; but if they should be of a contrary opi-
nion, then they would find a verdict for the plaintiff, with such
damages as would cover the reasonable expellees of a young
stuhreyleetteutrldnaanit. a
Tonhe of j
man moving in the rank and station of life which belonged to
averdict for the plaintiff—Damages, 211.