Sergeant Austin, of the Royal Artillery, had a billet made out in due form upon a new recruit and tried to billet him on The Plume of Feathers. Henry Petheridge, the landlord, was charged with refusing to accommodate the recruit. In his defence it was affirmed that Henry was already billeted with five militia men who occupied three beds. He told the court that he had offered the recruit the spare half-bed:
"THE MAYOR - Do two militia men sleep in one bed, then?
"The Defendant - Yes, they do.
"THE MAYOR - Then you had better take care not to be brought up here on that matter, for you are bound to provide a bed for each man. It seemed hard at first sight for a man to provide so many beds, but he took the house with these things in view, and where there were 800 men to be billetted in a city like this, it necessarily caused some inconvenience."
It was, no doubt, common enough in Victorian times for landlords to expect a guest to sleep in the same bed, sometimes a narrow one, with someone to whom he had not been introduced. (In Moby Dick, [1851] Ishmael famously had all the fun of being bedded with Queequeg!) but Exeter clearly had higher standards than New Bedford.
800 servicemen were billeted on the city! (We were at war with Russia and sending troops to the Crimea) Billeting on this scale was deeply unpopular.
Sergeant Austin and/or his recruit seem to have refused this shared bed. The sergeant had ended up paying a shilling to accommodate his recruit at The Elephant.
Henry Petheridge was let off lightly, thanks to the mayor and the good sergeant, and only paid the expenses. He promised to find extra beds at The Plume of Feathers.
Source: The Western Times, 6th January 1855.
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