The Past and Present of Hotels

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.

In the silken sail of infancy,” I made the acquaintance of the Wandering Jew of juvenile literature. Rollo Holiday began his travels in that prehistoric age before the discovery of the cigarette, when boys still built huts in the woods, played “ hawkey ” in the city streets, went fishing off the wharves of Boston, and were held to labor at the domestic wood-pile. Years, lustres, quarter - centuries, rolled by, and Master Rollo, still just rising twelve, was found voyaging on an ocean steamship and doing the grand tour, as young gentlemen were wont to do in the days of King Charles the Martyr, whom Puritan divines called “the man Charles Stuart,” and of whom liberal historians affirm that if he had been more of a man he would have been less of a martyr. If mine were the pen of the creator of this Zanoni of the Sunday-school bookshelf, and if it were right to steal the creation of another, I should like to add to that famous series Rollo as a Roundhead, Rollo as a Cavalier (went over about the time that Falkland did), and also to append, in behalf of this later time, Rollo at Football, Rollo on the River (in the ’varsity eight), Rollo Learning to Telephone, Rollo as a Typewriter.

It is not that I altogether admire Rollo. In my memory he is brigaded with Harry Sandford, that bâte noire of early days, when Robinson Crusoe was a reality, and Aladdin a fond but hopeful dream. But I should like to “call him up who left half told ” the story of Rollo’s early journeyings, in order to get some more vivid pictures of the old hotel and tavern life, now so entirely vanished. Their customs have followed their customers into the silent land. Rollo would now have to forget that he had ever placed — not without secret misgivings—his first pair of high-topped hoots outside his hotel bedroom door, in order that his shining morning face might be matched by his other extremity ; that he had sojourned at a caravansary where there were hours of meals announced by bells and gongs, and meals correspondent to the hours ; where those “ who came not at the first ca’, as was the custom of Puddingburn Ha’ and the house of Mangerton all hail,” “ gat no mair meat till the next meal.” He would dimly remember how he sat at a long table and watched processions of waiters with tin dish-covers held shicldwise before them. There were joints—sometimes giants — in those days, and actual carving, first at the festive board, afterward at the sideboard. Arrivals and departures were events in the day, at which the guests assisted, as they still do at seaside watering-places, and the host himself accompanied the parting guest to the stage expectant. He would then have bidden farewell to Rollo (supposing that young gentleman to have reached the mature age of twenty-five, and to be engaged to his cousin Lucy) with a cheerful “Goodby, Mr. Holiday. Hope next time we see you, you will bring Mrs. Holiday with you ; ” thereby causing Rollo to blush up to the eyes, partly with pleasure, and partly with wonder at the landlord’s omniscience.

In those days the patron of a house had rights, not precisely set down in charters, but, like the privileges of a grandee of Spain, known and respected of the sovereign. Was it not said to the transient casual, “ Sorry, sir, but 25 is the only vacant first-floor room, and we must keep that for Mr. Holiday, Sr. He always comes to Boston [or New York or Philadelphia] in March”? Then Howard — it was before the war—always set the stars and stripes above his roof when he had the governor of a State lodging under it. It is reported that the chief magistrates of the twin Carolinas once met at his table, but had no occasion to exchange the remark which history has made famous. Then the hotel clerk, who was as the executive officer of a man-of-war in rank and duty, was a man of varied information and infinite resource. His speech ran thus : “ Going across, Mr. Holiday ? If you stop a mouth in London, you will do well to have your name down at the Traveller’s Club. Go to the Albemarle, just off Piccadilly. I ‘ll give you a note to the landlord, and he will see to it. Albemarle is a nice, quiet house, where you will stop till you get lodgings. That is the way people do in London.” Or, “Going to Oxford to enter young Mr. Holiday? Of course you go to the Mitre, High Street, not far from St. Mary’s. Tell Bridges you want George Stephens for guide. He ’ll take you everywhere and show you everything, better even than one of the dons. As a rule, they only care for their own college and a few of the big lions.” Or, again, “ Did you say you wanted to see the original copy of Mather’s Magnalia, the one with the suppressed notes ? You will have to go to the

Historical Society’s rooms, opposite ; but you ’ll hardly get to see it as a stranger. Take my card to Mr. Oldbuek, the deputy librarian, and he ’11 do it, if any one will.” Once more: “Want a suit for your son here ? Better try my tailor, G. L. Itandige. Just mention I sent you.” “Masonic lodge, did you say? There’s some lodgemeeting almost every night. But wait a minute. Grand Commander of Knights Templars dines hero to-day. Think lie’s still iu the dining-room. Yes. John, step to that gentleman, third from the head of the table, the one in the blue eoat and brass buttons, and say, when he is at leisure we should be glad to see him a moment at the desk. He is your man, brother Holiday.” And so on, and so on.

Then, too, in those days extra services were attainable for extra tips, when the gratuity wisely administered did its work, and the whole thought of the serving-man had not degenerated to the alternative of wholesale greed or supercilious neglect. Then a “ half,” or even a “ quarter,” secured, not the ordinary sufficiency of service, whereof the public had no reason to complain, but a zealous and almost tender solicitude.

Then knowledge of hotels stood for something, since there was not the dreary and oppressive and costly luxury which reigns all along the great routes, and is miserably copied on the side-tracks of travel. There was choice in rooms instead of the leveling tyranny of the “ lift.”

Does any reader of The Atlantic remember the old hotel (burnt) at Nahant, and its “rattle alley,” devoted to youthful bachelors who did not mind stairs? The cubicula of its huge attic were cells partitioned off, with the free roof above, so that you could hold cheerful converse with your neighbor over the partition top; and young gentlemen from the near Harvard College, just then beginning to be called the University at Cambridge, would playfully abstract the balls from the tenpin alley and roll them up and down the long hallway between, to the terror and indignation of the elderly male guest who, in stress of room, had been provisionally quartered in 199. Provisionally, of course, for the old hotel régime respected age and dignity. He who could by personal experience

was thereby released from the necessity of climbing the stairways of his hotel above the first flight.

Then Rollo’s prudent mother saw that his trunk was duly stored with caudles, that he might read or write in his room at night by Something more refulgent than the tallow mould which bed ward-goers took from the porter’s table, in candlesticks of brass or japan. No touching of a button and the dynamo does the rest, then !

But the guest did not “ retire ” (Anglice, go to bed) till he wished to sleep. Then there was the evening gathering round the cheerful fire in the drawing-room or in the gentlemen’s parlor, and there was room for the natural selection of the nice to manifest itself, for the courtesies of travel to obtain, and for the survival of the fittest to take shape in life-enduring friendships.

Then, too, were country taverns, provincial hotels, famous in their day. Has there ever been the equal of “ Warriner’s,” in Springfield, Mass. ? Where shall one find the exquisite cheer of the Trenton Falls it* the. olden time ? Then hotels were famous for some special dish, the secret of which was religiously preserved. The judges holding nisiprius terms were, it was rumored, not uniiifiueueed in the court conduct by the fare set before them. Rollo’s uncle George, if I remember right, was a lawyer.

L wonder if he was on that famous circuit when the judge addressed the assembled bar on the evening of the first day’s session. “Gentlemen,” said he, “ I trust you will not protract this sitting of the court by any unnecessary delays. In all cases where the counsel can agree I will readily grant a continuance, and, with a little care, most of the cases set down for trial can be disposed of. I am sure you will agree with me. Why, Mr. Sheriff,” turning to that official, who, as of custom, sat at his right hand, “on this hotel table everything is cold hut the water, and everything sour but the pickles.” Report says that the effect of this neat dictum was that the next morning’s call of the docket showed such a slaughter of the innocents as was never before known in the history of litigation.

It is a sad truth, but I feel sure that Rollo would hear his testimony that hotels are not what they were in the essentials of comfort. Their conveniences arc greatly enlarged ; gas, electric bells and lights, steam heat, elevators, water, hot, and cold, laid on in all the rooms, save labor and trouble, while they increase certain perils ; hut do they increase one’s comfort? They remind us of the schoolboy’s definition of salt, — “Something which makes potatoes taste so nasty when you don’t put any on them.” “We are aware of them only when we miss them. I am, of course, an old fogy, hut Rollo, rejoicing in perpetual youth, is capable of honest decision. As the offset to these new devices, one sleeps no better in the modern bed, and the question is, Does one feed as well at the modern table ? He gets delicacies out of season just in time to kill the desire for them when the real thing arrives. Dishes are of necessity cooked and served, except at extraordinary expense, loss desirably than when “ home rule” prevailed in the kitchen. The Kuropean plan — which should be called the restaurant plan, for the table d’hôte prevails all over the Continent — is much more expensive, if one is to get the same dishes as in the American plan ; and there is, beside, the risk in ordering. The larger the hotel, the more it is compelled to a rigid system and careful economy, and these arc fatal to high perfection. The attainable idea is that of a democratic average ; but, however excellent democracy may be in other things, it is hardly meant to govern eating. Over every hotel dining-room nowadays might be inscribed, Libertr, Egaliti, Fraternité, which in English means, “Call for what you like : you will get just what your neighbors get, and pay for their tastes as well as your own.”

I for one cry, “ Vive l’Empereur Amphitryon I. ! ” who earns my allegiance by giving me his best. That was the old way before hotel-keeping became a speculation for raising millionaires. There must be individual rapport between provider and consumer to insure good eating. When the Spartan fed at the public dining-table he got black broth, and very soon got enough of it.