TEETH DOWN BATH PLUG

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 775, 23 September 1929, Page 13

TEETH DOWN BATH PLUG

GUEST CLAIMS £25 FROM HOTEL QUEER BEHAVIOUR DENIED How a man staying at the First Avenue Hotel, Holborn, London, lost one of his sets of artificial teeth in the bath there was described at Clerkenwell County Court recently, when Henry Harland, was sued by the First Avenue Hotel, Holborn, for £22 6s 6d, balance of account, and Harland counter-claimed for £25, the cost of his teeth. Harland said that while staying at the hotel last summer he was about to get into a bath which had been prepared for him by a chambermaid, when he threw his false teeth into the water. This was his invariable custom. Judge Rowlands: Before you got into it?—As a rule I do that. Harland added that when he had finished he drew the plug, and after the water had gone he found only one denture instead of two. There was no grid, and the waste-pipe was so large that he could put his fist into it. When he reported the matter the ipanager told him they were not responsible.

The manager afterwards asked him to find £IO,OOO to put the sanitation of the hotel in order. He found the money, and the manager then said he did not want it. He had got new dentures since at a cost of £2O. Pie was asked by the manager to leave the hotel in July. He did not regard himself as a humorist, but possibly he was fond of practical jokes. He had never frightened ary of the chambermaids with a toy pistol, and he did not know' that any visitors had complained. He had not bought an extraordinary knife and flourished it in the presence of a chambermaid and visitors. He had not bought a chain such as chambermaids carried their keys on, but bought a dog chain which he might have put round himself and walked about with. The reason he was asked to leave was that he upset the staff by giving them money for tips to attend to him Questioned as to other hotels Har land said that he had been asked o leave the Langham Hotel, and us left the Great Central Hotel without pa 37 ing all his bill, but he did not know that a judgment had been obtained against him. Mr. Clement Edwards: Is it not a fabrication that the manager asked you to find him £IO,OOO for the sanitation of the hotel? —No, A - not.

Evidence was given by members of the hotel staff. A chambermaid said that when she thought Mr. Harland was getting too funny she just let him rattle on and paid no attention. Another chambermaid said that she had seen Harland go into tho bathroom with a dog. She had also seen him slide down the bannisters in the morning.

They denied many of the statements made by Harland in his evidence. The Judge said that he was not at all satisfied with Harland’s evidence or his demeanour in the witness-box. He gave judgment for the Hotel Company for £22 6s 6d. the balance of account, and also for the Hotel Company on the counter-claim.