First In The List Of Extras Comes
That Matter Of The Sitting-Room, And By That For A Man And His Wife
The Whole First Expense Is At Once Doubled.
The ordinary charge is
five dollars, or one pound a day!
A guest intending to stay for two
or three weeks at a hotel, or perhaps for one week, may, by
agreement, have this charge reduced. At one inn I stayed a
fortnight, and having made no such agreement, was charged the full
sum. I felt myself stirred up to complain, and did in that case
remonstrate. I was asked how much I wished to have returned - for
the bill had been paid - and the sum I suggested was at once handed
to me. But even with such reduction, the price is very high, and at
once makes the American hotel expensive. Wine also at these houses
is very costly, and very bad. The usual price is two dollars (or
eight shillings) a bottle. The people of the country rarely drink
wine at dinner in the hotels. When they do so, they drink
champagne; but their normal drinking is done separately, at the bar,
chiefly before dinner, and at a cheap rate. "A drink," let it be
what it may, invariably costs a dime, or five pence. But if you
must have a glass of sherry with your dinner, it costs two dollars;
for sherry does not grow into pint bottles in the States. But the
guest who remains for two days can have his wine kept for him.
Washing also is an expensive luxury. The price of this is
invariable, being always four pence for everything washed. A
cambric handkerchief or muslin dress all come out at the same price.
For those who are cunning in the matter this may do very well; but
for men and women whose cuffs and collars are numerous it becomes
expensive. The craft of those who are cunning is shown, I think, in
little internal washings, by which the cambric handkerchiefs are
kept out of the list, while the muslin dresses are placed upon it.
I am led to this surmise by the energetic measures taken by the
hotelkeepers to prevent such domestic washings, and by the
denunciations which in every hotel are pasted up in every room
against the practice. I could not at first understand why I was
always warned against washing my own clothes in my own bed-room, and
told that no foreign laundress could on any account be admitted into
the house. The injunctions given on this head are almost frantic in
their energy, and therefore I conceive that hotel-keepers find
themselves exposed to much suffering in the matter. At these hotels
they wash with great rapidity, sending you back your clothes in four
or five hours if you desire it.
Another very stringent order is placed before the face of all
visitors at American hotels, desiring them on no account to have
valuable property in their rooms.
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