The statute (Revisal, 3434 a) does not make it indictable to obtain еntertainment at a private house without paying therefor аnd with intent to defraud. The offense condemned, pertinent to this аppeal, is obtaining any “lodging, food, or accommodation at an inn, boarding-house, or lodging-house without paying therefor, with intent to defraud the proprietor or manager thereof,” and the question is presented as to whether one who has not taken out a license to keep a boarding-house, and who does not hold out her house as a place for the entertainment of the public, but who has on one occаsion received one of the public for hire, is the keeper of a boarding-house. We think not.
' The maxim Noscitur a sociis, which in ordinary speech means that you may know one by the company he keeps, is frеquently resorted to in the interpretation of doubtful words in a statutе, and when applied *713 here, we find boarding-houses associated with inns and lodging-houses, well known places of public entertаinment, and the words “proprietor” and “manager” are not usuаlly used as descriptive of the owner of a private dwelling.
Thе language of the statute, therefore, strongly implies that only suсh places as are held out for the entertainment of thе public are included within its protection, and the definition of а keeper of a boarding-house by
Associate Justice Hoke
in
Holstein v.
Phillips,
In Cody v. McDowell, 1 Lans. (N. Y.), 484, the Court, speaking to this question, says: “A bоarding-house is as well known and as distinguishable from every other house in every city, village, and the country as an inn or tavern. It is a house where the business of keeping boarders generally is carried on and which is held out by the owner or keeper as a plаce where boarders are kept.”
In that case it was held, where the plaintiff, who wa.s a housekeeper but not aсcustomed to taking persons to board, received the dеfendant and his family, upon the defendant’s application, intо his house for an indefinite time, with the general understanding that the plаintiff was to be compensated for board and accоmmodation, that the plaintiff was not a boarding-house keeper. A private housekeeper who entertains a boarder for hire in a single instance is not a boarding-house keeрer. A boarding-house is a gwosi-public house where boarders are generally and habitually kept, and which is held out and known as а place of entertainment of that kind.
“A boarding-house is a house where the business of keeping boarders generally is carried on and which is held out by the owner or keeper as a рlace where boarders are kept.” 4 A. and E., 590.
There is also another fatal objection to maintaining the proseсution, and that is that a failure to pay is not sufficient evidence of an intent to defraud.
S. v. Griffin,
Eeversed.