HOTEL ANGLO-FRANÇAIS.
There are several comparatively small but decidedly pleasant hotels in rue Castiglione—Hotel Liverpool, Hotel Balmoral and Hotel Anglo-Français. The last-named is especially to be commended for its choice location, the comfort and cleanliness of its rooms, its appetizing cuisine, and its remarkably moderate charges. It is in rue Castiglione, directly opposite the Continental; two blocks one way from the Column Vendome, two blocks from the Place de la Concorde, near the Champs Élysées, and only a few hundred feet from the beautiful gardens of the Tuileries.
Like the majority of Paris hotels, the Anglo-Français is entered by a court-yard, but unlike some of them, the ventilation and lighting of the house are good. It has ample room for more than one hundred guests, and they can be made very comfortable.
The house is kept on the American as well as on the European plan. If you adopt the system which prevails abroad, you may hire a single room as low as four francs per day, or a double room from seven francs per day; breakfast, three francs; luncheon, four francs; table d’hôte dinner, six francs. This figure includes good wine in quantum sufficit, as a medical man might say. As at nearly all Continental hotels, “service” is charged. In this instance it is one franc per day; and you pay for lights—item seventy-five centimes, about fifteen cents.
But if you wish to be relieved of all this detail and save the bother of reckoning, you can stay at the Anglo-Français, and your whole bill per day for board, lodging, lights, wine, etc., will be the moderate sum of fifteen francs (three dollars), which, considering the appointments of the house, the excellent table and the attention you receive, is an uncommonly low rate.
The proprietor is a gentleman of decidedly pleasant and courteous manners, who, having lived in England for twenty years, is perfectly at home in the English language as well as his native tongue.
If you desire to mix with an ultra-fashionable set, the Bristol is your house; if you want to see and be with Americans only, then select the Grand. The Continental is the place for those who would feast their eyes on palatial salons: at the Anglo-Français you will get into the company of good people from different countries, you can be quiet and comfortable and made to feel at home, as is to be expected in a smaller house. Moreover, your purse will be lightly drawn upon in accordance with the figures given above. Proprietor, Paul Vargues; address, No. 6 rue Castiglione.
Hotel de Lille et d’Albion, in rue St. Honoré is not a very large house, but it is ranked among the best, although its charges are quite moderate. It has baths, lift, electric light and English billiard tables, its modern contrivances including telephonic communication with the leading European cities. The sanitary arrangements are said to be perfect. The location is central for shopping, for places of amusement and points of interest, being near Place Vendome, Tuileries Gardens and the Opera. Mail address, 223 rue St. Honoré: telegraph address, Lillalbion, Paris.
Hotel Bristol and Hotel du Rhin both front on the Place Vendome; you can’t miss them: they are near the tall and graceful Column Vendome which pierces the sky from the centre of the square. There is no question as to the excellence of either of these houses. Both are patronized by a select class of patrons; the former is the home of the Prince of Wales when he visits Paris.
Hotel Liverpool is patronized by the Astors. To Americans this information conveys more than could be detailed in a whole page of description. It is situated at 11 rue Castiglione, a wide and fashionable thoroughfare leading from Place Vendome to the Tuileries Gardens. The house was recently newly fitted up and has a hydraulic lift. There are large apartments for families making a more or less prolonged stay; smaller apartments for transient guests.
Hotel de l’Athénée. Of hotels just as select as any of those mentioned, there are a score or more. Among them may be mentioned the Hotel de l’Athénée, 15 rue Scribe. It was recently enlarged, the whole of the Théâtre de l’Athénée having been added, and the former dining-room is now converted into a reading room. There are two bath-rooms on each floor. The appointments include a parlor, a reading room, a restaurant a la carte, and two private dining-rooms. There are 180 rooms in all, which rent from four francs to twenty francs a day, but there are not very many rooms in the house at four francs.
Des Deux Mondes.—A comfortable family hotel, newly and tastefully furnished, is the Hotel des Deux Mondes, 22 Avenue de l’Opéra, facing full south. The charges are moderate and the table d’hôte good.
Prince Albert.—If price alone is a recommendation there is the Hotel du Prince Albert, 5 rue St. Hyacinthe, near the Tuileries. Rooms from 2 francs 50 centimes per day with even lower terms for the winter. The house seeks American patronage.
Hotel Brighton, 218 rue de Rivoli. Rooms from 6 francs per day: breakfast, 2 francs, dinner 7 francs. Proprietor, A. Bastianello.
Hotel Campbell.—This favorite house with an English name has changed hands, lately. Arthur Geissler is the new proprietor. It is at 61 and 63 Avenue de Friedland, a pleasant and fashionable location, near the grand drive of the Champs Élysées. The house is in a healthy condition and the rates are moderate, Hotel Campbell is easy to find; it is close to the Arc de Triomphe.
PENSIONS OF THE FIRST CLASS.
But you are not forced to patronize any hotel, large or small; there are many very delightful pensions or boarding houses in Paris. These some people prefer, if their party includes ladies, or if they intend to make a protracted stay. A few of these pensions are presided over by American women.
The Lafond combines some of the best features of hotel and pension. It is at 14 rue de la Tremoille, near the Champs Élysées. It is called “a comfortable American home,” and is made all the more comfortable by having a lift. Rates for two persons in one room, with three meals per day, 18 to 30 francs per day; single rooms, 10 to 15 francs per day; children and servants, half rates. These figures include all charges; the American plan. If you prefer the European plan, these rates prevail—breakfast, two to four francs; luncheon, three francs: dinner at 7 P.M., five francs. Cable address, Lafhotel, Paris.
Hotel de Dijon is situated in rue Canmartin, between the Opéra and the Madeleine. It is a family pension, and the charges range from 7 to 10 francs per day, according to rooms. Soirées are held every Friday with music, singing and dancing. The table d’hôte is good; there are reading, smoking and bath-rooms.
The Van Pelt Pension at 69 Boulevard St. Michel is kept by Mrs. E. L. Van Pelt, a Philadelphia woman who took with her to Paris the best American references. This place has many features which commend it to the stranger in Paris. Its location, facing the Luxembourg Gardens, is near the famous art schools and the Sorbonne, where free lectures are given, thus making this a desirable residence for students. It is within easy access by omnibus, cab or train to all parts of Paris and environs. The house stands on a corner, and all the rooms are exposed to the sun and air. A balcony surrounds the first floor. French is the language of the household, and a chaperon accompanies ladies to lectures, etc. There is a separate table for those who prefer to speak English.
American Family Home.—This term is appropriately applied to the pension de famille presided over by a young French widow whose personal beauty and grace of manner are more than marked. Reference is made to Madame Veuve Léon Glatz, who is assisted in her duties by her sister. Both of them speak English with a pretty and piquant accent. The Glatz pension is in rue de Clichy, five minutes distant from St. Lazare Station and Park Monceau; ten minutes from la Madelaine and the Opera. It was built in 1885 and is sanitarily correct; supplied with pure spring water from the new water works of Paris. There is a really grand salon in which musicales are given weekly. In the rear of this is a large and handsome garden, neatly kept—a very pretty lounging place on summer evenings. There are baths in the house, the bedrooms are nicely furnished, the service is good, and last, and by no means least worthy of note is the table, which is liberally supplied; the best as to quality. But Madame Glatz at present has only room for thirty guests and her house is in such demand that you must engage rooms months, or at least weeks, in advance. Terms, 8 to 14 francs per day, which is the full charge; no extras, except, possibly, for lights. This is a favorite place with Americans of refinement: others are not admitted to Madame Glatz’s charming family circle. Address, 45 rue de Clichy.
The Powers Pension—One of the most desirable pensions in Paris, especially desirable for Americans, is kept not by a “charming Frenchwoman,” nor by a “hearty” Britisher, but by a couple of cultivated, good Americans, well-known in New York—Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Powers, Jr. The house is in a high and delightful location, in the American quarter, 69 Avenue d’Antin, near the Champs Élysées. Mrs. Powers claims that it is “the most elegant and comfortable pension in Europe,” and I, who have had some experience in hotels and pensions of the first rank, do not contradict the statement. I am not given to using the adjective “elegant” too freely, but elegant and tasteful are words that come to mind without summoning, in speaking of the Powers pension. The salon is a beautiful apartment; yes, uncommonly beautiful. It is on Monday evenings more particularly that this salon looks its best, when the receptions, with music, are held. The Powers pension is a select family home in the strictest sense of the term, and the rates for board are quite reasonable: pleasant rooms and three meals from ten francs per day. A lift was put in last autumn. Make a note of the address—69 Avenue d’Antin.
In the hotels mentioned the reader has a very wide latitude of choice and he may be guided by the facts and the figures set forth, so far as they go. As a last word I will add that if the reader “puts up” at the Hotel Chatham, Hotel Binda, or the Anglo-Français, or the pensions of Mr. and Mrs. Powers, Madame Veuve Glatz, or Mrs. Van Pelt, he will surely have no occasion to regret his choice of quarters.
THE RESTAURANTS OF PARIS.
BY THEODORE CHILD.
In order to anticipate criticism, and to avoid disappointment, it may be well to state at once that the art of cookery is in a terrible state of decadence in Paris. The men of the present generation do not seem to have the sentiment of the table; they know neither its varied resources nor its infinite refinements; their palates are dull, and they are content to eat rather than to dine. This decadence may be remarked both in private and in public establishments. The gourmet nowadays is a rarity, and a man of thirty years of age who knows how to order a dinner is a still greater rarity. One might discover many causes of this decline of a delicate art. The conditions of contemporary life, the hurry and unrest of modern Paris, doubtless do not conduce to the appreciation of fine cooking; but the chief cause of the decline of cookery in restaurants is the development of club life. The men of fashion, leisure, or wealth, who formerly would have lived at the restaurants, now dine at their clubs between two séances at the baccarat table, and the restaurants have thus lost that nucleus of regular and fastidious customers which, by its readiness to criticise and appreciate, obliged and encouraged the chef to keep up the traditions of the dainty palates of the past. At present the great restaurants of Paris depend for support as much on foreigners and on provincial people as on resident Parisians. The criticism of their cookery is less constant and less rigorous; the bills of fare are less varied than they were of old; the amour propre of the cooks is less; in a word, cookery has become nowadays more an industry than an art. Even in the most famous Parisian restaurants the visitor must not expect too much in the way either of viands or of wines.
In certain things, again, it must be remembered that the Parisian market is inferior to the markets of almost any town in England. The English visitor generally speaks disparagingly of the French oyster, for instance, doubtless because he is not accustomed to its flavor, and yet I know many connoisseurs who have travelled and dined in many lands who maintain that of all oysters the green Marennes (Marennes vertes) are the most delicate and delicious. The lovers of comparisons will ask what equivalents the French have for real turtle-soup, ox-tail, mulligatawny, and pea-soup with a sprinkling of dried mint and sippets. Is it their bisque or purée of crayfish, their consommé de volaille, their Saint Germain, or green pea-soup, their Parmentier, or thick potato-soup? But the traveller does not go to Paris to eat the food of his native land, but rather to enjoy the particular food of the country. Therefore, he must not expect to get fine salmon, or cod-fish, or turbot, or even mackerel in Paris. The city is too far away from the sea to have good salt-water fish. Salmon in Paris is dry and of poor flavor; fresh cod-fish is rarely seen, and the habits of the restaurants render it impossible to eat such salmon and turbot as there is in favorable conditions. In a London restaurant a whole salmon or a whole turbot is served hot like the joints; in a Paris restaurant, if you order boiled salmon or turbot, the cook cuts a slice off a parboiled fish, puts the slice in the pot, and boils it up for you. The result is unsatisfactory. As a rule, I should say, in a Parisian restaurant eat your salmon and your turbot cold, and prefer to both a red mullet (rouget), a sole, a trout, or some fresh-water fish. A carefully prepared matelotte d’anguilles, which is not precisely the same as stewed eels, and friture de Seine, which need not be compared to whitebait, are both dishes not unworthy of the attention of the epicure.
The French are poor roasters; the roast beef and roast mutton in their restaurants cannot for a moment be compared with the joints at Simpson’s or Blanchard’s in London. Pies and puddings also are unknown to the French, with the exception of pâtés de foie gras and game pies. The French, again, eat their game very fresh and less cooked than the English. Generally, I think that the raw material of the Parisian restaurant cuisine is inferior to that of English restaurants; on the other hand, with the limitations referred to above, particularly as regards roasting, the preparation of the dishes is superior, and in the first-class restaurants unique. In the preparation and variety of vegetables the French lead the world; in the fabrication of sauces they are unsurpassed; in the serving and arrangement of a dinner they leave little to be desired.
But where can one go to dine in Paris? Which restaurants are the best, and what are the prices, and what is one to order? The subject is delicate and even dangerous, for although the critic has the right to declare a book or picture bad, pernicious, or abominable, and to pronounce its author to be unworthy of public attention, he dare not be so outspoken about the wretchedest restaurant-keeper who is licensed to poison his customers. I cannot tell you that such and such a restaurant in the Palais Royal is not to be frequented, or that such and such a gilded palace on the boulevard is an expensive delusion. I may, however, assure you that as prices run in Paris, it is impossible for a restaurateur to serve you with a healthy and honest plate of meat for less than one and a half francs, and you may therefore conclude that the restaurateurs who, for a fixed price, varying from one and a quarter to three francs, offer you a complete dinner of five courses—soup, fish, meat, two desserts, and half a bottle of wine—are probably in league with the honorable apothecaries, whose aid their customers must often need.
To the traveller I say avoid prix fixe dinners altogether, or, if you will satisfy your curiosity, go to the Dîner Européen at the corner of rue Lepelletier and the boulevard (price five francs), or to the table d’hôte dinners of those vast caravansaries, the Hôtel du Louvre, the Grand Hôtel, or the Hôtel Continental, where you dine for six, seven, or eight francs, and see specimens of men, women and children of all the countries of the world, and a profusion of linen, of silver plate, and luxurious surroundings which, for a time, will perhaps distract your attention from the insipidness of the roasts and the cheapness of the sauces.
The Bouillon Duval is an establishment which generally attracts the attention of the traveller. In every quarter of Paris you see one or two sober and respectable-looking façades painted dark red and lettered simply, “Établissement Duval.” The Duval restaurants are wonderfully organized, exceedingly cheap, and all the food sold in them is good and genuine; these establishments now serve an average of three million meals a year. The visitor may often find it convenient in his wanderings about Paris to lunch in one of these Duval restaurants, if he is out of the way of any other well-known restaurant. In all of them he will find the food of the same quality, and the prices the same. As he enters, the doorkeeper will hand him a bulletin, on which all that he eats and drinks will be checked off, and which bulletin, when duly paid and stamped, will serve him as a passport when he leaves the establishment. The prices at the Duvals are very low; no dish costs more than one franc, and most of them only fifty or sixty centimes; wine costs twenty centimes a carafon, which is equivalent to one glassful, or one franc a bottle and upwards; coffee and cognac costs forty centimes. The Duval restaurant may be frequented with impunity, for nothing poisonous or deleterious is sold there; the only disadvantage is that the portions being very small, a hungry man, in order to satisfy his appetite, will need so many portions, that his bill will mount up to as much as if he had lunched or dined in an establishment of superior standing and comfort. The Bouillon Duval stands in the same relation to the regular restaurant as the omnibus or tram-car stands to the victoria; as somebody has said, c’est l’omnibus du ventre.
At length we come to the restaurants proper, the restaurants where one dines in the true sense of the term. It is commonly believed that the first-class restaurants in Paris are very dear. The Café Anglais, you will be told, charges twelve francs for a beefsteak for two, and fifteen francs for a Rouen duck. Yes, but the beefsteak in question is a Chateaubriand, a kernel of delicate meat cut in the heart of the filet,—meat that is sold at two and a half francs a pound by the butcher—and the duck costs eight or nine francs at the poulterer’s. Good provisions in Paris are dear, and when one considers the heavy expenses of the first-class restaurants, one cannot complain of their charges.
As regards perfection of cooking, the Café Anglais heads the list. Its soups and sauces are exquisite; a sole “à l’Orly,” “Colbert,” “normande,” “à la Join-ville,” or “au vin blanc,” may be eaten there in perfection, and there is no restaurant in Paris where you can get a more delicate “sauce diable” served to a grilled fowl. The two great tests of a French kitchen are soups and sauces; if these are good, you may rest assured that everything else will be good.
In the same category with the Café Anglais, both as regards quality of food and price, may be placed Durand’s, opposite the Madeleine, and Adolphe and Pellé behind the Opéra. Next come the Maison d’Or, the Café de la Paix, Bignon, and the Café de Paris, in the Avenue de l’Opéra, Voisin in the rue Cambon, the old Véfour in the Palais Royal, the Père Lathuile, in the Avenue de Clichy, and Fayot, opposite the Luxembourg Palace. At all these restaurants you can dine delicately and drink as good wines as are still to be had in France. Voisin and Foyot, especially, have choice Burgundies of incomparable fineness.
The third category of restaurants includes the Café Riche, which years ago belonged to the first category; Brébant’s, now a general Bouillon, at the corner of Boulevard Montmartre; Chevilliard, at the Rond-Point des Champs Élysées; Laurent, and Ledoyen, in the Champs Élysées; Champeaux, Place de la Bourse, where you dine in a perpetual winter garden; Edouard, Place Boieldieu, opposite the Opéra Comique; Wepler, Place Clichy; La Pérouse, on the Quai des Grands Augustins; Maire, at the corner of the Boulevard de Strasbourg and the Boulevard St. Denis; Marguery, next door to the Gymnase theatre; Perroncel, rue du Havre, opposite the Gare Saint Lazare. In the Bois du Boulogne the restaurants of Madrid, and of the Pavilion d’Armenonville are much frequented in the summer by gay and smart people: the prices are about the same as at the restaurants in town of the second category, that is to say, two can dine there modestly with ordinary wine for a louis.
I presume that the traveller comes to Paris to taste Parisian cooking, and therefore I shall not recommend him to try the pseudo-English cuisine of Weber or Lucas in the rue Royale and Place de la Madeleine, or the Russian restaurant in the rue Marivaux, or the Hungarian restaurant in the rue Rougemont. There remain then to be mentioned only a few special establishments, such as the Pied de Mouton near the Central Market, and the famous tripe restaurant in the rue Montorgueil. There are several restaurants in Paris which make a specialty of Bouillabaisse; but I do not recommend that dish in Paris, for the simple reason that it is not the real article. In the Parisian Bouillabaisse several of the fish elements are wanting because they cannot bear transportation from the seaside. The traveller gourmet will prefer to wait until chance leads him to Marseilles, where the reigning chief of the great dynasty of Roubion will serve him this savoury dish on a balcony overlooking the blue Mediterranean. The café concerts in the Champs Élysées are also much frequented by open air diners in the summer. The spectacle is curious and amusing, but the gourmet will flee the promiscuity and bustle of their dear and mediocre cuisine.
To give precise details as to price is difficult. One may say generally that at the Café Anglais two persons can dine delicately and well without stint as to good wines or choice of dishes, for about two louis (forty francs). On the other hand, the single man who is prepared to spend not less than seven francs on his dinner may enter boldly any restaurant in Paris, from the Café Anglais downward, and dine for that sum on soup, one dish, cheese, and half a bottle of wine. For ten or twelve francs one may dine simply but abundantly almost anywhere, except at the very tip-top houses, such as the Café Anglais, Durand’s, and Adolphe and Pellé’s. By way of practical hints I will subjoin a few observations.
Beware of hors d’œuvres and baskets of fruit, for their influence on the total of your bill is alarming. If you are alone, resolutely refuse radishes and butter, or rather leave them untouched on the table before you; if you have invited a friend to dinner, offer him hors d’œuvres and hope that he will refuse; if you are with a lady, both hors d’œuvres and the basket of fruit are obligatory. Eve offered fruit to Adam; the least we sons of Adam can do is to return the politeness.
The real gourmet eats by candle-light, because, as Nestor Roqueplan said, “rein n’est laid comme une sauce vue au soleil.”
When you enter a restaurant refuse as a rule the place that is offered you. Choose your own table, and if it is breakfast-time secure a view through the window and a view of the whole restaurant, and if possible let the light strike on the table from your left hand.
Preserve your freedom of will, but do not try to impose it. You are the master, it is true, and yet to a certain extent you must obey. Consult, therefore, with the maître d’hôtel, consider what he recommends, and accept it if it be to your taste, for in the good restaurants there is no question of passing off stale food. The maître d’hôtel is flattered when you ask his advice, and it is his business to be acquainted with the special and daily resources of the larder. At places like the Café Anglais the written menu mentions only a few very ordinary dishes, and you will inspire respect by not asking for the carte. At Bignon’s do not trouble yourself about the carte; ask advice of the portly Louis, and do not disdain his counsel. In cookery as in love much confidence is necessary.
Always ask for the wine list, la carte des vins, even if you end by selecting vin ordinaire. The richest people in the land drink vin ordinaire with their dinner, and dilute it with simple water. The traveller, therefore, need not fear to do likewise even in the most gorgeous restaurants. Champagne is not much drunk by French gourmets, and such champagnes as the Paris restaurants keep is sweeter than our people generally like. To the connoisseur in champagne I would say, “Do not drink champagne in France, for the best crûs are to be found in England and Russia.” If you desire fine red or white wines you will find the nomenclature and the prices on the list; choose your Beaune, Pomard, Volnay, Nuits, or Moulin à Vent, your Tavel, Tonnerre, or Chambertin according to your taste and purse; consult confidentially with the butler, and mind that you always address him as sommelier, and not garçon. The sommelier is inferior to the garçon in the hierarchy of table service, as you will see from his more humble and respectful demeanor.
Ask for l’addition, and not either la carte or la note, which savours of provincialism. Verify your change rapidly, and see that no pieces lurk on the plate beneath the bill. Be liberal towards the waiter, for it is the pourboire that secures you a smile when you arrive and a smile when you leave, a helping hand when you are struggling into your overcoat, obliging and ready service, and the appearance, nay, even the reality of friendship. In the three categories of restaurants mentioned above do not give the waiter less than fifty centimes, however modest your bill, and the more delicate and satisfactory your dinner, the more liberal let your pourboire be, ranging from one franc up to five, calculated generally at the rate of five per cent. on the total of your bill.
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN BANKING CO.
When Americans have the facilities to execute a good idea they always possess the energy and the boldness to execute it in a fitting way. Thus instead of going into small quarters in an out of the way location, the Anglo-American Banking Company of Paris selected a large and imposing building, fronting on two broad streets. Then with a liberal outlay of money they proceeded to fit up the different floors in luxurious style. The site, on the corner of Chaussée d’Antin and Rue Meyerbeer, half a block from the Grand Opéera, a step from the Grand Hotel, and near some of the leading boulevards, is at once choice, central and accessible.
The ground floor of the building, where money is exchanged and where letters of credit are cashed, is roomy and has a solid and business-like appearance, while the upper floors are furnished with an eye to convenience, comfort and beauty. It is here, on this second floor, where there are tastefully furnished rooms for ladies, where desks are at hand for clients to conduct their correspondence, and where the leading American, English and French papers are kept on file in charge of a prompt-serving and careful attendant.
The bank is now established on a firm basis; it has the confidence of the French people, and it promises to become an “institution” in Paris. It is convenient to keep a small account at the bank, drawing checks against it in making purchases in Paris. But the house can be used for any and every legitimate banking purpose, and Americans find it very useful as a place where their letters may be addressed, where their letters of credit are cashed and where they may meet friends. It has some of the features of a club, and although only established a few years is now quite a popular rendezvous for Americans. The Anglo-American bank itself issues letters of credit payable all over the world.
The officers of the American Banking Company are S. J. Gorman, of New York, president; J. L. Carr, vice-president; J. H. Hobson, of New York, general manager; Edmond Huerstel, secretary. Cable address, Anabaco, Paris.
AU BON MARCHÉ.
Everybody has heard of, and all who have been to Paris have visited Au Bon Marché, world-renowned of dry goods establishments. This great emporium was practically founded by Jacques-Aristide Boucicaut, who, beginning life in a small way in the dry goods business, became partner, and finally sole owner of the Bon Marché. Once above the rank of ordinary employee, he undertook to improve the moral and material condition of his fellow workmen. He inaugurated free classes in the arts and sciences, language, music, etc., and established a provident fund for long service in the establishment, supplied his employees with free medical attendance, and in many other forms, in addition to large outside charities and good works, evidenced more than enough of the spirit to entitle him to the appellation of philanthropist. At his death in 1877, the annual returns from his business exceeded sixteen millions of dollars. After his death his good works were continued by his widow, who, with an enormous fortune at her command, dispensed it in extended and elaborate charities, establishing the system of sharing of profits among her employees, creating a retiring pension fund, erecting and maintaining hospitals, and at her death disposing of millions of francs to churches, colleges, and other public institutions.
Mme. Boucicaut died ten years after her husband, but the Bon Marché still continues under the original plan and system of its founder. There are three thousand six hundred employees, and all the unmarried employees of the establishment board on the premises. For the proper conduct of such a business the system of course must be perfect, near as may be. Rules and regulations are set forth and strictly adhered to. It is expressly provided that the food shall be wholesome and abundant. A doctor is attached to the establishment who may be consulted by the employees free of charge. Any employee called for military service can, at its expiration, resume his situation. No fines are inflicted under any circumstances.
The Bon Marché forwards to any part of the globe all goods bought at the establishment, and to nearly all the countries of Europe, including Great Britain, it will forward free of charge for carriage any purchase to the amount of twenty-five francs (five dollars). A pretty souvenir volume is issued by the Bon Marché. It contains a useful indicator map of Paris, and a deal of interesting information about the great metropolis. It may be obtained free upon application by postal card. Address simply, Au Bon Marché, Paris.
THE DE SOTO.
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.
The city of Savannah, with its balmy air, its far famed Bonaventure Cemetery, its pretty parks, broad streets and many natural attractions (acknowledged to be one of the most attractive Southern cities), was long avoided by many pleasure tourists, because it had no hotel worthy of a city claiming fifty thousand inhabitants and doing a business of over one hundred and thirty millions of dollars annually.
Savannah is the greatest cotton port in the world—New Orleans excepted. Savannah has deep water and good docks. Sometimes as many as thirty English ships are in this port at the same time. They take cotton direct to foreign ports. Savannah is easily approached from North and South: presently it is to have communication with the west—direct from Kansas City. When these and other contemplated improvements are made, Savannah expects to experience an era of great prosperity. It is predicted that the city will double its population in the next ten years.
Anyone who doubts that Savannah is steadily moving forward in prosperity has only to take a glimpse at the tax returns made to the city treasurer for 1891, to have the doubt quickly dispelled. In 1890, the returns of personal property footed up $9,948,048, and in 1891 they were considerably over $10,000,000, the increase being about $500,000. The banks alone in ’91 made returns of $506,000 in excess of 1890. This shows that there is a great demand for banking institutions. Real estate has increased $1,300,000.
Such being the present condition and future prospects of Savannah, it was time that some movement were made for the better entertainment of visitors, so at last the citizens put their heads together and concluded that no matter how rich a city is in natural attractions, the climax of success is only capped by railway facilities and first class hotels.
Mr. H. B. Plant, head of the Plant System, furnished the railway facilities, and now the citizens of Savannah have supplied the hotel. They formed a stock company, subscribed a million of dollars and opened the De Soto, two years ago, which proved to be exteriorly one of the handsomest houses in this country, if not in the world, and interiorly one of the best appointed—in keeping with the American idea.
Savannah never had a habit of going across the seas for hotel names. It boasts of no Victoria, no Buckingham, no Imperial, but it has a Screven, named after a prominent Georgia family; a Pulaski, named for a military hero, and now a De Soto, in honor of the discoverer of the Mississippi river. Savannah is nothing if not patriotic. It has a Monterey square, a Forsyth park, and among its monuments are the noble columns erected to perpetuate the memory of three revolutionary heroes—Jasper, Green and Pulaski.
The De Soto cost a round million of dollars. It occupies, but does not literally “cover, an entire block of ground,” as the writer of the little descriptive pamphlet has it. The house is built in the form of a hollow square, with entrances on three sides. This plan of construction was adopted to leave a large open court in the centre, thus securing an ample supply of light and air; and the plan has succeeded to perfection.
The dining-room, which seats nearly four hundred guests, has air and light its full length, on both sides. Some of the bedroom doors, instead of wooden panels, have panels of ground glass to let light into the halls. The bedroom in which these lines are written is fifteen feet square, not counting a deep recess for the windows, of which there are two, each measuring seven feet six by four feet six. There is also a transom over the door. To such an extent has this love of light been carried that even the elevator, instead of being built with solid sides, has sides of strong, open wire work, through which light and air stream freely.
The interior, while being on a broad, liberal, yes, a luxurious scale, has no striking novelties. It is modelled after the style of the large modern American hotels of the first-class. There is a large and splendid “office” with reading-room, smoking-room, writing-room, and small parlors branching off; there are open fires and all the etceteras of convenience and luxury; the whole ground floor is marble-tiled, the corridors are ten feet wide and richly carpeted; they lead on each side to an inviting veranda; there is pure water from an artesian well and the sanitary arrangements are said to be scientifically correct.
The parlor, with its onyx tables, its gold-framed chairs, delicate carpets, its richly-embossed furniture covering, its mirrors, electric lights and the light-colored walls minus anything that suggests a work of art, is, to my mind, rather cold and stiff. I prefer the home-like drawing-room of the Imperial Hotel in Aberdeen, Scotland, with its profusion of fresh flowers, its cabinets and pretty things, or say, the drawing-room of the Langham Hotel, London, rich and pleasing in subdued, dark colors; but the De Soto is an American hotel, it is kept after the American methods, and without doubt the parlor suits to perfection those for whom it is furnished—then why should anybody criticise its decorations?
But the exterior with its novel and beautiful construction, a combination of architectural styles forming a very pleasing whole, commands instant admiration. There are towers, turrets, arched entrances, Queen Anne windows, fountains and a number of overhanging red-tiled roofs through which waterspouts project in picturesque fashion. The walls are of brick in two different colors with terra cotta trimmings, railings and ornaments of black iron. All of these materials and colors are used with skill and the very best taste, making an artistic combination which is remarkably pleasing. Then the graceful palm trees here and there give the surroundings a tropical appearance and serve to add to the beautiful picture.
The site of the De Soto was well chosen. All of the four streets on which it is built being wide, ample opportunity is afforded to admire from a distance its lines of beauty. Its main front is on a very wide street, Liberty street, probably not quite so broad as Unter den Linden in Berlin, nor has it the grand palaces of that renowned German street; but Liberty street is neat, clean and kept in good order, which is more than can be said of Unter den Linden. The sidewalks are of smooth-faced red brick; between them and the roadway on either side there is a row of trees. There is another row of trees, also a car track, in the middle of the street, and on either side of the track again there is an asphalt drive for carriages. There is abundant space, and although it lacks the solid buildings of larger cities, the street itself is not lacking in attractions.
Within five minutes’ walk of the house is Forsyth park, with its acres of forest trees, and plenty of japonicas and roses in full bloom at this writing, January 26. In the centre of this park there is a handsome fountain, modeled after the grand fountain in the Place de la Concorde, Paris. It is a mistake and a pity to half hide it behind japonica trees and rose bushes, from six to eight feet high.
It is very enjoyable to sit in any of Savannah’s pretty parks these days, say between noon and four o’clock. There is no danger of taking nor of feeling cold. At night and in the early morn the air is cool (36 to 42 degrees), but in the afternoon it is soft and balmy—anywhere from 56 to 76 degrees. It is an old habit of mine to carry a thermometer in my satchel, so I am not dependent on the hotel instrument nor on hearsay for my facts and figures concerning the temperature. Frost is rarely seen in Savannah, and they never get a sight of snow unless some of the “beautiful” article should remain on the car roofs of trains coming from the North.
The De Soto can accommodate four hundred guests, and besides, the dining-room and the smaller “early breakfast-room” on the main floor, there is a banqueting hall on the first floor in which two hundred guests can sit down comfortably. A novel feature for a hotel is a gymnasium, on the sixth floor, and above this, at the very summit, there is a large “Solarium,” fitted up with chairs, tables and lounges. Here you can sit, bask in the sun, and, as Walt Whitman says, “loaf and invite your soul.” In this elevated position you get a magnificent view of Savannah and the surrounding country—as far east as the Tybee coast, twenty miles distant.
There are in all three hundred and thirty-eight bedrooms, forty parlors and sixty bath-rooms in the house, affording many choice suites for families. There are no dark rooms nor inner rooms; all have a street view, a park view, or look out upon the court-yard. Every room has a wardrobe built in the wall, and this is covered by a tasteful portière. All the carpets and draperies, by the way, came from W. & J. Sloane, and the electroliers and gasoliers were supplied by Archer, Pancoast & Co., both leading New York houses in their respective branches.
A band of twelve pieces (Cobb’s Savannah Band) performs excellent music in an alcove near the dining-room during the luncheon and dinner hours.
The house has been leased for fifteen years by Watson & Powers, who have had long experience in Charleston and other hotels. They kept the Pulaski House here, as a colored driver told me in answer to a question, “a right smart time,” which still leaves the number of years rather indefinite. The same gentleman and brother, who drive carriages for the house, and who drove me through Bonaventure Cemetery, said that the fire of two years ago, which burned for two days, destroyed the “‘Sonic Hall.” He also volunteered this piece of intelligence: “Der Pulaski House is makin’ a very big condition,” which I translated to mean addition. My esteemed friend, Mr. Marcus Wight and his charming wife, of Lowell, Mass., were our travelling companions for that day, and their delightful company enhanced the interest and the enjoyment of the drive.
If you desire to see a hotel which contains all the latest and best American ideas, and, unlike the hotels of Europe, combines them into a perfect system, telegraph for rooms to the De Soto. It is advisable to take it in, as a resting place, between New York and Florida, or vice versa.
P. S.—This is called a cold winter in Savannah, yet at six A.M., Thursday, January 29, the thermometer marked sixty degrees.
THOMASVILLE, GEORGIA.
Time, eleven A.M., February 1.—Your correspondent is seated at his bedroom window; there are two large windows in the room, and both are wide open. The apartment is twenty feet square with a twelve-foot ceiling; it is not heated artificially and yet the temperature in it is seventy-two degrees. This is not said from hearsay, nor is the record taken from a hotel thermometer, which may be unreliable, but from a portable thermometer of my own.
When the Place was Settled.—People ask, “How old is Thomasville: when was it first settled?” The writer can answer this question because he had the good fortune to be presented to no less a personage than Mrs. M. A. Bower, a most charming woman to look at and to converse with, who is proud of her fifty-six years, but whom you would judge to be at least ten years younger. Mrs. Bower was the first white child born in Thomasville, and in the first real house erected in the place. It stood on the present site of the Mitchell House. Mrs. Bower is the daughter of Colonel and Mrs. Edward Remington who came here from Pawtuxet, R. I., in the year 1828. Set it down for a fact then that Thomasville is three score years old.
Location.—Thomasville, the capital of Thomas county (this is not from a gazetteer, please believe), stands three hundred and thirty feet above sea level, being on the highest ground between Macon and the Gulf of Mexico, in the Uplands of Georgia. It is two hundred miles from the Atlantic, sixty miles from the Gulf of Mexico as the bird flies, twelve miles from the Florida State line, a thirty-three-mile drive from Tallahassee, and is reached from Jacksonville at the South or from Savannah coming from the North in a few hours by way of Waycross or Jesup, two places not particularly attractive to the tourist but quite useful as way stations, affording junctions for several lines of railroad.
Health and Pleasure.—Thomasville was at one time simply a health resort: people with consumption or other lung or throat diseases came here for relief and they found it. They, the sickly people, still come to get well; but beside being a health resort it is now also a place for pleasure. Fashion has set its seal on Thomasville. New York and Boston are well represented among the visitors, but the West especially favors Thomasville, and St. Paul, for its size, sends more people probably than any other city. A number of St. Paul citizens have cottages here and have set up fine establishments. Ladies dress for the morning ride or drive; they dress for the mid-day dinner and again for the evening dance. Ladies at the hotels exchange visits with the cottagers, also with the townspeople, the permanent residents giving strangers a warm, Southern welcome.
Features of the Town.—To-day Thomasville has churches of all denominations (including a Jewish place of worship), two hotels far superior to any between Baltimore and Jacksonville, unless exception be made of the new Oglethorpe at Brunswick; a number of smaller hotels, numerous boarding houses, two daily newspapers, several good private schools, a flourishing college for girls and one for the other sex, a railway direct to the town—and five thousand inhabitants. The boys’ college is a branch of the State University and has at present two hundred and fifty pupils. The other institution, called “Young’s Female College,” was endowed by a Georgian, and the charge for tuition is so low as to be nominal, ten dollars per year to each pupil. So the religiously inclined have ample opportunity to worship at their particular shrine, and the educational advantages of Thomasville are good.
Nature’s Gifts.—The reputation of this place was gained by its dry and balmy atmosphere, its even temperature, its health-giving pine forests and by its freedom from cold or sudden changes. The United States Signal Service report shows that the average winter temperature is about fifty-five degrees, and the average temperature last July, the hottest month here, was eighty-two degrees. While the winter days are warm the mornings and nights are pleasantly cool, and it never snows here. Once during the past fourteen years they did have a flurry of snow. It happened on a Sunday and the churches remained empty; so interested were the inhabitants in the uncommon sight that they neglected the church and all took to snowballing. You need no overcoats nor wraps for outdoor wear, except, perhaps, for an evening drive, or for rainy days; but an umbrella or parasol to protect you from the heat of the sun is indispensable. I am speaking of needing such an article at the present time, February 1.
The Piney Woods Oak.—To those coming from the North the sight of the trees in full leaf is as agreeable as it is strange. The pine, live-oak, hemlock and holly all have their branches thickly covered. There is a gorgeous live-oak on the grounds of the Piney Woods Hotel whose spreading branches measure sixty feet across. There is still a larger one in the town, which people travel miles to see. It spreads ninety feet across. But beauty does not always consist in bigness. The Piney Woods oak is both beautiful and big, but its symmetrical beauty is its main attraction. Is it too warm on the hotel porch? Are the sun’s rays too fierce? Cross over the road, fifty yards distant, and seek a comfortable bench or rustic seat in the grateful shade of the pines, in what is popularly termed “Yankee Paradise,” but known more correctly as Paradise Park. It includes thirty acres laid out in walks and drives. There is no ice to make your step unsteady, but the needles of the pines render the paths rather slippery.
When to Come.—You can pick violets in the open air and pluck in the fields a small bouquet of daisies at this writing, but to see Thomasville at its best, I am told that you must come a little later than this, when the grass is all green. You can then pluck wild roses to your heart’s content. Then the pear orchards will be in full bloom, and the dogwood blossoms are a sight to behold. I have been here only three days and have seen no rain, but the soil is sandy and one can readily believe what enthusiasts say, that an hour or two after a long and heavy rain walking is again pleasant, the rain having percolated through the ground, leaving the surface perfectly dry, if not hard. And there is seemingly no end of lovely walks. You get out of the town in five minutes, and if you are bent on pedestrian exercise, and have an eye for beautiful scenes, turn your steps in any direction and you will make no mistake.
What to Bring.—If the ladies of your party are equestriennes, by all means let them bring their riding habits with them: everybody rides. Driving, too, is largely indulged in, the roads being hard, smooth and unusually wide. They extend for miles and miles through the pine woods, and their picturesque beauty you will please imagine; it is not easy to describe it without using more adjectives than I have at my command en route. To sportsmen let me say, do not come without your dog and gun or you will never forget nor forgive the error. Wild turkeys abound, there are snipe in plenty and quail can be bagged by a novice. You see them on the road while driving, and the crack of the rifle is heard almost constantly. Quail on toast is a regular dish at the hotels at least once a day.
The Negro and his Works.—Without desiring to attack political problems, to raise dead issues or to discuss questions that have long since been answered, one cannot resist the temptation to obtain information on the result of the emancipation proclamation, for although it is over a quarter of a century old the subject yet has great interest for this country, and for other countries also, for that matter. Here is a statement of facts and figures in condensed, nutshell form upon which chapters and books might be written—the colored population of Georgia pay taxes on real estate amounting to twelve millions of dollars, the realty being estimated at about one half its actual value, and their personal property is estimated at about six millions of dollars. There are instances of marked faithfulness and attachment of slaves to their former owners, some of the blacks still serving their white masters. Among the servants of Mrs. M. A. Bower, proprietor of the Piney Woods Hotel, are two who formerly served this same “master,” one of them being the skilful pastry-cook of the hotel. Negroes say that the whites and work do not agree. Possibly not; they are unaccustomed to labor hard in this section, and on the other hand whites claim that the colored are by nature more fitted for work in such a climate. Be that as it may, it is certain that the colored people of the South are not over fond of work, either: you cannot depend upon their working regularly. So soon as they can put enough by to keep them in cracked wheat or hominy and a little tobacco the colored laborers are likely to throw up a job, and are not over particular if they occasionally leave an employer in the lurch. If you are a new settler and are building a house, for instance, they will have no compunction about leaving you some fine morning, or some wet afternoon, before your house is roofed in. Of clothing for warmth they need little, and the weather never being severe their log cabins or pine huts need not be very tight: if they shed the rain that is all that is necessary for them.
The Chain Gang.—The jail at Thomasville was not near large enough until a new plan of punishment was adopted. The colored roughs committed small offences for the very purpose of getting into prison; in that way obtaining food and shelter, and at the same time “doin’ nuffin.” Not so now: the town council met and adopted the resolution that prisoners should be made to work, and that is how the “chain gang” came into existence. You will see gangs of colored men repairing the roads and engaged in other public works on the highway. They wear a striped uniform after the prevailing fashion at our State prisons. The two legs of each man are held close enough together by iron chains to prevent the action of running, but yet the chains afford him sufficient freedom to move about and make himself useful with pick and shovel. It is a novel sight for a stranger to meet one of these gangs on the road, and the clank of the locked iron links has a strange and weird sound. To their credit be it said, the men are ashamed of their public disgrace, and the Thomasville prison is now large enough to hold all the applicants for admission. Making the negro work and making him a public show have had good effect. Such a plan is of course not feasible for cities, but it might be adopted with a degree of success in thinly populated districts of Northern States. Tramps give Thomasville a wide berth. If one of the genus unwittingly wanders that way he is given his choice: he must leave at once or join the chain gang and work for thirty days.
Upland Products.—Cotton is still king in the South, and Georgia produces its full share, but Thomas county is also noted for oats. More oats are produced in Thomas county than in any other county in the United States. This I have from one of the prominent citizens of the town, whose information is as extensive as the manner of imparting his knowledge is agreeable. If you come to Thomasville try to meet Dr. Bower. He practices his profession no longer, being interested in many large enterprises. He can give you more interesting information concerning these parts than probably any other person hereabouts. But you must allow a little for Dr. Bower’s enthusiasm. He is apt to look at Thomasville and Thomas county through a rose-colored glass. From Dr. Bower your correspondent learned, among other things, that the Le Conte pear, which grows in such profusion here and in Florida, was brought to this country from China about fifty years ago, and propagated by Commodore Le Conte, a Georgian of French descent. It does not equal the Bartlett in flavor, but its skin is tougher, and it bears transportation better. You may see orchards containing thousands of trees, and the trees average a production of twelve to fifteen bushels. Some trees are said to yield as many as thirty-five bushels. They boast here of the largest pear orchard in the world—two hundred and twenty-five acres. Last year twenty-five thousand crates of pears were shipped from Thomasville to cities in the North and West. Some found their way to the New England summer resorts, and were received with favor. Still, from all I can learn, while the North has its Bartlett, it need not envy the South its Le Conte.
The Poor Kine.—It is conceded that they raise here in abundance cotton, oats and pears, and that pine trees, roses, magnolias, quail, figs, and other good things grow in profusion, but, on the other hand, the live stock is very poor indeed and meats must come all the way from New York if people demand meat that is good and nutritious. That is where all the meat comes from which is consumed at the hotels. It almost makes your heart ache to see the poor, weak oxen that are forced to work, and the thin, bony cows that must yield their milk. It may be different in summer time, when the grass is rich, but the cattle seem to be very poorly fed now, or not fed at all. They are allowed to roam freely about the streets and byways of the town, and pick up, by day or night, what they can find.
The Winn Farm.—An exception to this rule must be made in favor of Winn Farm, a tract of eighteen hundred acres, owned by F. J. Winn, several hundred acres of which are under cultivation. The stock there looks better than the animals you see in Thomasville proper, and for which you have nothing but sympathy. They make good wine, too, at Winn Farm, and it is offered in hospitable quantities from the hand of an attractive, cultivated woman, the presiding genius of the place, Mrs. F. J. Winn. The luscious, juicy oranges which are put on the tables of the Piney Woods Hotel in such liberal measure, come from the grove on Indian River, Florida, owned and cultivated by Dr. Bower. The grove contains four or five thousand orange trees in bearing.
The Hotels.—There is a standing joke about certain Southern cities where there are only two hotels, that, whichever one you select, you will wish that you had chosen the other. Although the hotels south of the line have greatly improved of late years, the old joke will still apply in certain towns and cities. Not so, however, at Thomasville. There are only two hotels here known to fame, and you will make no mistake if you select either. It is a matter of surprise to find two such hotels in such a comparatively small town. The Mitchell House and the Piney Woods Hotel (I take them alphabetically) are both large, new, handsomely furnished and perfectly appointed houses, containing all the modern improvements, and erected with strict regard for the laws of sanitation. The Mitchell House is an imposing solid brick structure, four stories high, two hundred feet square, with a cultivated park of two acres sweeping before its front piazza. This little park is reserved for the hotel guests and their friends.
The Piney Woods Hotel is within gun-shot distance of the Mitchell House, on the same street, with a front measuring three hundred and fifty feet, the other side overlooking Paradise Park, of which I have already spoken. The Piney Woods stands, as it were, and as its name might indicate, on the very edge of the pine forests, and yet it is only a five minutes’ walk from the post-office and a ten minutes’ drive from the depot. The pamphlet issued by the proprietor tells you that “the Piney Woods is modelled similar to the Grand Union Hotel, at Saratoga Springs,” but this is a mistake of the compiler of the work, and is no compliment at all to the house under consideration—which is far more pleasing to the eye, exteriorly, than the Grand Union at Saratoga. The Piney Woods is built after plans of J. A. Woods, a New York architect, who planned the new Grand Hotel in the Catskill Mountains, and with its wide and lofty verandas, its projecting towers, its pretty corners here and there, is a facsimile on a somewhat smaller scale of that favorite and beautiful house. Any one who has seen the hotel on the line of the Ulster and Delaware Railway, can picture to himself the Piney Woods Hotel at Thomasville. The late Captain Gillette, who kept the Mountain Hotel, kept this one also for years. William E. Davies is now the manager of the Piney Woods.
Each hotel, the Mitchell House and the Piney Woods, will accommodate nearly three hundred guests.
The Best Route.—The Atlantic Coast Line, called “the short route to Florida,” is by all odds the best way to reach Thomasville from the Eastern States and from New York. The vestibule train, “the Florida special” of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which traverses this route, is the quickest and most luxurious train, with its dining-room car, library car, etc., but this only leaves New York on certain days of the week, and you must apply for seats a long time ahead, and then you may not get them. The ordinary trains, with Pullman sleepers, are good enough for the majority of travellers, and they afford people opportunity to stop over and see the cities en route—Washington, Richmond, Wilmington, N. C., Charleston and Savannah. Or, if you prefer, you may come direct from New York, in about thirty-two hours, to Waycross, Ga., where there is connection for Thomasville, distant four hours. But if you “stop over,” you must be prepared to travel in ordinary coaches between the Southern cities; parlor cars are not attached to local trains. It would help Thomasville materially if the Savannah, Western and Florida Road (everybody in this section calls it “the S. F. & W.”) were to run a quick train with a parlor car to meet the Florida special. The return would not be great at first, but it would prove profitable to the road ultimately. Washington, D. C., seems to be especially favored: the Atlantic Coast Line runs a Pullman buffet sleeping car for Washington passengers direct to Thomasville. Strangers and tourists make it a point to go to the stations to see the Pennsylvania vestibule train at different points of the road, and the colored folk stand and stare at the beautiful appointments with eyes and mouth wide open. “Only God’s people,” remarked one surprised darkey, “can ride in them carriages.”
A NEW SOUTHERN RESORT.
If you tell people in New York that you are “going to Brunswick for the winter,” they will probably look at you with surprise; some will say, “Do you mean New Brunswick?” having in mind New Brunswick, N.J.; while others will say, “Brunswick; where is Brunswick, in what State? I never heard of it.” Well, new as Brunswick may appear to the majority, it is an old place, having been settled and laid out in the year 1763.
Where is Brunswick?—Brunswick is in the Southeastern part of Georgia, not far from the Florida border, sixty miles below Savannah, seventy miles north of Jacksonville. The city covers an area of two miles square, and is handsomely laid out, the whole adorned by some of the most beautiful groves of live oaks and cedars to be found in the South. It is situated on a small peninsula jutting out into the sea, surrounded on three sides by salt water, but protected from the severity of the ocean winds by outlying islands. Brunswick is only eight miles from the sea and there are no fresh water streams or swamps within many miles to breed malaria, the air being constantly renewed and vivified by the health-bearing breezes of the ocean, that render it, as official statistics show, one of the healthiest cities in the Union.
Among its natural advantages are its climate, uniform and mild in winter, its geographical position being but little north of St. Augustine, ice being seldom seen, and snow rarely, if ever; its forests of pine, palm and moss-covered oak, its healthy soil, pure water, semi-tropical foliage and plants, the magnificent drives, and last, but by no means least, its superior water facilities, having one of the finest harbors in the South Atlantic. As to the trees: I have stood under the far-famed old oaks of England, I have seen the moss-covered trees of Bonaventure, of which all Savannah proudly boasts, and admired the great oak at Thomasville, whose branches measure ninety feet across; but there is an oak here which belittles them all for age, strength and size. Under the “Lovers’ Oak” at Brunswick it is said that one hundred teams can find shelter from the sun’s rays. It is called Lovers’ Oak because a marriage was once performed under it, several hundred witnesses being present at the open air ceremony.
Jekyl and Other Islands.—There are a number of beautiful islands near here which are fertile almost beyond one’s imagination. Everybody has heard of Jekyl Island, and all true sportsmen know it. It is famous as the location of one of the finest club-houses in the country, the island being a paradise for the sportsman and fisherman. It is literally full of game; deer, wild turkey and other fowl are so plentiful that visitors are sure of good sport. Being a natural game preserve, upon which the general public have not been permitted to hunt, the increase has been rapid and the supply practically inexhaustible. The club-house, seen from the river, is a noble structure. Then there is St. Simon’s Island, which lies off the coast at a distance of seven miles from Brunswick, and is noted for the wonderful fertility of its soil. It excels especially in fruits—oranges, peaches, figs, bananas, olives, lemons, limes and pecans, growing in great profusion. The climate is almost perfection. Ice is seldom seen, and snow has been seen here but once within the present century,
A Doctor’s Certificate.—Brunswick’s peninsular location, almost surrounded by salt water, with immense pine forests on the north, extending hundreds of miles into the interior, conduces to a state of healthfulness excelled by no other place of its population in the whole South. Dr. H. Buford, Health Officer of the City of Brunswick, makes the following official statement: “The result of my observation and experience as a practitioner in this city and in the country adjacent thereto, during a residence of seven years, proves that our mortuary statistics show a minimum death rate—Poughkeepsie, N. Y., not excepted. During an active practice of seven years I cannot record a single case of scarlet fever or diphtheria. Hay fever and asthma are unknown here.”
A Mistake of Congress.—Brunswick is a century and a quarter old, but it went along lazily and slowly, like many other Southern towns and villages, and the war somewhat retarded its progress. Nor was it helped by a committee from Congress which, some years after the war, took a cruise along the Atlantic coast to examine the facilities of our seaports. Congress has not earned its peculiar reputation without deserving it. This committee may have included members who were learned in the law, or who knew how to hoe potatoes, but of harbor advantages and the requirements of ships they must have been innocently ignorant. They reported that “the harbor of Brunswick was twelve feet deep.” This went abroad and ships went elsewhere. How near to the truth came this report may be judged by one instance. On Friday, February 3, 1888, the English steamer, the Port Augusta, cleared this port drawing twenty feet of water and carrying 6,559 bales of cotton, weighing over three millions of pounds and valued at $300,000. It was the largest cargo ever cleared from a South Atlantic port, and ships drawing twenty-four feet of water enter and leave here without the slightest danger of touching bottom. So much for the congressional report. That the shipping facilities of Brunswick are becoming known may be judged also from the following facts and figures: During the whole month of February, 1887, the exports of cotton, naval stores and lumber amounted to $78,000 while for only the first five days of Feb., 1888, the exports amounted to over $300,000. These figures are given on official authority from the collector of the port. Are more significant statements needed to show the marvellous advance and improvement of this place? Here they are—the exports in the year 1886 amounted to less than a million dollars; in 1887 they footed up over two and a quarter millions. The imports of 1886 were less than $5,000, the imports of 1887, $48,000.
A City by the Sea.—How has all this seeming prosperity and increase of business on the water affected the land? Well, in 1884 the population of Brunswick was 3,000, four years later it was 8,000; the increase of taxable property was thirty-three per cent, greater in ’87 than ’86; the comptroller of the State says that this county (Glynn) has made for the last twelve months a larger pro rata increase than any other county in the State of Georgia, for eight years ago there was not a brick building in the place; now there are blocks and blocks of brick stores and fine dwellings; increase in the value of the land is almost fabulous, and there is a new brick hotel here, “the Oglethorpe,” which cost with furniture, $160,000, the equal of which for site and style cannot be found between Washington, D.C., and St. Augustine, Fla.
The Oglethorpe.—The new hotel is an evidence of and in keeping with the new order of things. The location of the building is choice—on the highest ground in Brunswick, affording fine views and rare sanitary facilities. The house is not merely considered to be, but is fire-proof. So perfect is the protection against fire that the company insuring the property reduced the usual hotel rate one-half in consideration of the character of the building and the excellence of the fire system adopted. The Oglethorpe stands on the principal street, near the railway depot and steamboat wharf, on a plot of ground about three hundred feet square, the main building having three stories and being two hundred and sixty-seven feet long, with wings running back one hundred and forty feet. It is the largest building in the place, and with its graceful round brick towers at each corner, and its turrets and spires jutting through the roof, here and there, it is the most prominent object you see as you approach Brunswick from any direction, either by land or water. The Oglethorpe, being new, is the latest exponent of all that is best and most approved in modern hotel building, and of course has all the “modern improvements.” The drawing-room is a grand apartment, reminding you of the parlor of the United States at Saratoga; the dining-room is lighted from three sides, and seats three hundred persons; the main floor, the entrance, office and lower hall are tiled with Georgia marble in beautiful colors, and there is a covered porch for promenading which reaches up to the second story. It is two hundred and forty feet long, and from twenty to twenty-five feet wide.
The bedrooms of the Oglethorpe are larger, as a rule, than those of most hotels. Even the “small rooms” connecting with the suites are twenty feet long by eleven wide, and have two windows, each seven feet high by three feet wide. The “tower” rooms, with their open fire-places, carved wooden mantels, tiled hearths, rich Moquette carpets, portières of velours, and lace curtains on brass poles are as handsome as the bedrooms of any other hotel that the writer has seen, and if the walls and ceilings were artistically decorated and frescoed, the “tower” rooms of the Oglethorpe probably might compare with those palatial bedrooms of the Hotel Métropole in London. A peculiarity of the Oglethorpe is that there are no back rooms; each one faces the street or overlooks the bay, but a few hundred feet distant. Between the bay and the house the grounds of the hotel are attractively laid out. As to the table and general management of the Oglethorpe, it is only necessary to say that the manager is Warren Leland, Jr., a member of the celebrated Leland family—a name long associated with some of the leading hotels in the United States.
En Route to and from Florida.—Brunswick is reached by rail from the North by the Atlantic Coast Line and the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad by way of Savannah and Waycross, Ga., and from Jacksonville, Florida, by railway to Fernandina in one hour, and thence by steamboat in four hours. The water route is very pleasant. The boats, if not splendid specimens of naval architecture, are at least staunch and comfortable. You take an inside route, hug the shore, pass many beautiful islands and get glimpses of most picturesque scenes.
Tourists contemplating a visit to Florida for health or pleasure do well to break the journey at Waycross or Jessup, visit Brunswick and see the charming country thereabouts. The run is made from Waycross to Brunswick in three hours and ten minutes.
The route Southward is from New York to Quantico, Va., over the Pennsylvania tracks; from Richmond to Charleston via Atlantic Coast Line; from Waycross to Brunswick by the Plant system. Leave New York (Desbrosses or Cortlandt streets) at 9 P.M. or midnight—through car to Waycross.
A CUBAN CITY IN THE UNITED STATES.
Key West, February, 1891.
Key West, in Spanish Cayo Hueso (Bone Island), derived its name, so says history, from the fact that the island was strewn with human bones. The conquerors didn’t take time to bury the bones of the conquered. The change, corruption Spaniards call it, from Cayo Hueso to Key West was easy.
The United States bought the island from Spain in 1816. The formation is coral and it contains about two thousand acres. The Hon. C. B. Pendleton, editor and proprietor of the Equator-Democrat, and a man of culture who has served in the State Senate, showed me an island, or key, as they call it in these parts, distant from Key West five miles, and which he believed to be the most southerly point in the United States. Another authority informed me that Cape Sable, distant from Key West about sixty miles, is the most southerly point.
To quote Editor Pendleton, Key West is distant from the tropical line only thirteen miles. Doctors will differ; another authority gives it as sixty miles. I am inclined to think that on the tropical question my editorial brother is correct in his estimate, because Key West is only distant from Cuba eighty or ninety miles.
The climate is about the same as that of Havana. In the Cuban capital the mercury never goes below sixty degrees; in Key West the lowest point recorded is fifty-one.
Key West is the ninth port of entry in the United States, collecting more import duty than all the other ports in the States of Florida and Georgia and one-half of Alabama combined.
In 1860 the population was about two thousand, one-quarter of whom were colored; but in 1869, after the rebellion in Cuba, the population of the island began to increase and now it numbers twenty-two thousand, and they claim that it is the largest city in Florida.
The inhabitants are mixed, very much mixed—Cubans, negroes, Americans, Chinese, etc. The negroes come from Nassau, Cuba and other places.
Key West was bought of Spain, as before remarked; the island is nearer Cuba than any other land, it is not in any sense American except that it flies the American flag, and it seems to be now, to all intents and purposes, a foreign place—a Spanish colony, as it once was. Spanish is the prevailing language, and Cubans predominate. All the public notices and handbills are printed in two languages, several newspapers are printed in Spanish, and only one, the Equator-Democrat, in English. It is difficult to make a purchase or to transact any business unless you speak Spanish, and there are few drivers or conductors of street cars who can understand you if addressed in English. The car drivers swear at their patient, sadly abused mules in hard Spanish. All the American residents and business men speak the prevailing tongue, or are learning it as fast as they can, for without it they cannot so readily conduct business.
Speaking of the street cars, they are all open, of course, winter and summer. In fact, there is never anything resembling northern winter weather in Key West; light summer clothes and Panama hats are worn the year round.
But you are not obliged to patronize street cars. Riding in private conveyances is at a cheaper rate of fare than even in London, or in a country town on the Continent. In London the smallest cab fare is one shilling (twenty-five cents); in Key West you can ride a short distance for a dime, and a longer distance for fifteen cents. The conveyance is a very light and very dirty wagonette on four wheels. The driver is as dirty as his vehicle, and his horse resembles those poor skeletons which are blindfolded and pushed into the arena at a Cuban bull fight.
Such tropical fruits as the sugar apple, the guava, mango, the soft and sweet sapadillo, thrive in Key West. The climate and salt atmosphere combine to make it the home of the palm. There are many tall, slender and beautiful cocoanut trees, some with their graceful leaves waving as high as eighty feet in the air, making an interesting and pretty picture against a cloudless sky.
But the cultivation of the cocoanut in Key West might be made very profitable as well as picturesque. At present there are comparatively few of such trees; their cultivation ought to be encouraged. The tree has no tap root, and will thrive on a thin soil. It comes into bearing eight or ten years from the nut; and after that the fruit grows and increases every month in the year. Like the orange tree, the older it gets the more it bears. A bearing cocoanut grove costs less to care for than an orange grove, and the revenue therefrom is greater. It requires no cultivation, and is as hardy in its section as the cabbage palmetto, that grows everywhere in Florida. Besides, cocoanuts can be shipped in any month of the year; they require no packing, no care in handling, and they will bear transportation for thousands of miles. There is a good market for green cocoanuts in these parts as well as for matured ones. When the nut is fully grown, but green, it contains about two glasses of clear juice, milk we call it in the North. It is considered a healthful beverage in the tropics and sells per glass in the streets of Havana for the equivalent of five cents.
Nature has favored Key West with a perfect climate. It is surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, as blue and as beautiful as the famous Danube. Nature in fact has done everything she could to make the place desirable as a residence for man, but man has done little or nothing for himself, thus far, and if the truth must be told, notwithstanding its favorable natural conditions and its lovely surroundings, Key West is not yet a desirable place to live in. It has no sanitary laws, for nothing whatever has been done with a view to sanitation, and yet with the salt ocean all around the little island, how easy it would be to make it healthy and clean, for it is neither one nor the other. There is no such thing as system, no sewerage whatever in the town excepting one iron pipe which leads from one hotel, the Russell House, to the sea, and even that one pipe is allowed to clog occasionally.
A liberally illustrated and large edition of the Equator-Democrat was issued in 1889, which presents a very rose-colored view of Key West. In that paper I find that “the pleasant streets running at right angles are as smooth and hard as adamant.” I am not certain that I am very well acquainted with adamant, but I know that the streets of Key West are unpaved and that they are the roughest and the dirtiest streets I ever saw. As I have lived in Baltimore, in New York and in New Orleans, my testimony ought to be accepted on such a theme. I speak of Key West in fine weather; what it must be in wet weather I don’t like to imagine. If nothing but very deep ruts, holes and great gullies in the roadway resemble adamant then is Key West adamantine beyond doubt.
There is not a boot-black in the town; none is needed. Nobody thinks of blacking his shoes; it would be absurd. I spoke on this point with a young New Yorker who hails from the fashionable precincts of Madison avenue. He is a business man who is liberal in the matter of money, usually dressy, and extremely neat in his person. He has been in Key West six months, and in all that time not a brush has passed over his shoes.
I regret to differ with my learned and courteous friend, the editor of the Democrat, on the subject of hotels. Let him speak for himself. He says that “The Russell House, the leading hotel in the city, is second to none in the State in accommodations.” Now I had an idea that St. Augustine and Jacksonville and Tampa were in Florida, and that there were such hotels “in the State” as the Ponce de Leon and The Cordova at St. Augustine, and the new Tampa Bay Hotel at Tampa Bay, not to mention a number of other first-class houses “in the State.”
Directly opposite the Russell is the Duval House. You may never have heard of it; it is not one-third the size of the Russell House. I know nothing of the apartments of the Duval. for I investigated no further than the dining-room, but that was enough to establish its good reputation. It will be a long time before I forget how beautifully garnished a dish they made at the Duval of a red snapper, and the delicious flavor of their omelette soufflée remains with me still. The Duval is presided over by a Cuban lady, Mrs. Bolio, who kept for years one of the leading hotels in Havana. She is evidently a woman who knows what good living is.
Cigar-making is a very large and important industry in Key West. The place was selected for cigar-making because the climate is suited to the “curing” of tobacco in the leaf, and because it is near Havana. There is something also in the name. Everybody does not know that this (Spanish) island is United States territory, and some smokers if they see a “Key West” label on a box of cigars believe, without stopping to think, that they are smoking a foreign-made cigar. Now a Key West cigar if made from Havana tobacco of fine quality has just as good a flavor as if it were made in Cuba, but the Key West cigar can be sold at a lower price because the import duty on cigars is much higher than the duty on the raw material.
Having the same climate as Havana, the best climate in the world for tobacco curing, and the cigars being made by Cubans, who are the best cigar-makers in the world, Key West turns out just as good cigars as can be produced anywhere—provided always that tobacco of the first quality is used. And the cigar need not consist entirely of Havana tobacco. A cigar of choice flavor is made of a mixture of tobaccos—Havana “filler” and “binder,” with, say, a “Connecticut seed” or Sumatra wrapper.
The manufacture of cigars has without doubt aided largely in building up the business of Key West. One authority says that there are two hundred factories, employing five thousand operatives, and transacting a business amounting to seven millions of dollars annually. But this report may be exaggerated. However, here are some more figures, and if the reader is mathematically inclined he can draw his own conclusions: Key West during 1890 turned out one hundred and forty millions of cigars.
There are very few Spanish or American cigarmakers in Key West; the majority are Cubans, with a very small sprinkling of negroes. There are so many factories and so many operatives that, although it is a cigar-producing place, very few cigars indeed are sold at retail. Everybody smokes, every one invites you to smoke; cigars are almost as free as the air. It would be a paradise for a young dude who has a slender purse and who is addicted to the weed.
Upon the courteous invitation of P. Pohalski & Co., who have a branch in Havana, with headquarters in Warren street, New York, I paid a visit to their factory, which is one of the largest in Key West, and I was much interested in what I saw. Pohalski & Co. erected their own factory, upon their own ground, and it is one of the most imposing edifices in Key West. They also built upon their own land a number of small houses which they rent to their workmen at a moderate figure; for its size it is quite a respectable colony.
Although very large, employing several hundred hands, the factory is orderly, exceedingly clean and neat, showing good government. Perfect system reigns throughout the entire establishment. The first floor is used for the business offices, for cases of tobacco and for the “strippers;” the whole of the second floor is occupied by cigar makers, and the third floor is used by the “packers,” also for curing leaf tobacco and for storing cigars in boxes.
A “stripper” is one who, with the dexter finger and thumb of the right hand pulls the stem from the leaf while the leaf is damp, the leaf being held in the left hand. It is done by a dexterous and quick movement, not a vestige of the leaf remaining on the stem. The most costly leaves, for wrappers, are only entrusted to experienced operators. The strippers in this factory are numbered by scores. They are all females, all Cubans, and range in age from ten years old to women of fifty.
It is not a pleasing sight to one who associates woman with habits of refinement, to see the older women, while at their work of stripping, smoke long, thick cigars. They hold the cigar between their teeth and seldom remove it, not even to talk. They are rough-looking cigars, rolled into shape by the women themselves from the leaves they are stripping.
A more pleasing picture is presented on the cigar-making floor, above. You will be surprised upon entering to see a man standing erect in the centre of the room, book in hand, reading aloud. You cannot help but notice, although Spanish may be Greek to you, that the reader’s voice is powerful and well trained, reaching to the extreme corners and to the most distant ears on the vast floor. He is a professional reader. The several hundred men club together, each paying a nominal sum for the reader’s services. In this way, while engaged in their work, they hear the news of the day and are regaled with the latest Spanish novel.
“Packing” cigars is a technical term. It is not simply to tie them up with pretty silk ribbons and place them neatly in a box. A packer is one who assorts the colors also. It is a very nice and delicate piece of work. It demands a good eye for color and long experience, and then it can only be done in a certain light, of course not by artificial light, nor unless the day is bright.
An overcast, murky and heavy sky is not good for packing—assorting, it might be called. In a few hundred loose cigars placed on a table ready for “packing,” the casual observer will probably see only three or four colors. They are first assorted roughly to bring together those of decided colors—light brown, medium, dark brown, etc. Then a pile of dark or light shades is gone over again and again until the different piles of cigars are alike, as if they were all made from one leaf and turned out by machinery. The packer also discards a cigar that is not perfectly made, or one not uniform with the rest. A special few, exact as to form and hue, are selected for the top row, to catch and please the eye of the smoker when the lid of the box is raised. A good packer is paid better than any other operative in the business. Men and women are employed in it, some of them earning as high as twenty-five or thirty-five dollars per week.
The sponge trade is also a very large and important industry here. The sponges are found in this part of the Gulf of Mexico, and the trade gives employment to a great many people. I visited the largest sponge house, that of Arapian & Co., and saw there in different stages, sponges valued at a quarter of a million dollars. Such a stock of sponges, as you can easily imagine, occupies much space. My only surprise was to find such valuable merchandise housed in a light frame building. A fire would spread easily, and the whole would be rapidly consumed.
I have spoken of the dirty, unpaved streets of Key West; it would be unfair not to mention a lovely drive which you can take for a few miles on the edge of the Gulf. You go around the old forts, you see lighthouses and other interesting objects en route, the bracing air from the Gulf fans your cheeks, the ocean is spread out before you, and if you return in the early evening, and near dinner time, you will most likely be favored with a grand sunset, and you will surely have a keen appetite.
Key West is reached from New York by steamers of the Mallory line, and from New Orleans by New Orleans and Havana steamers, but decidedly the best and most luxurious way of going to the island is by the Plant line of steamers which leave Tampa, Florida and Havana, Cuba, three times a week. The “Mascotte” and “Olivette” were built for this route. They are both staunch, swift, beautifully appointed ships, whose commanders were in the Atlantic service for years, the “Olivette” being the fastest boat of her size in the world—a model vessel.
If you are going to Key West for pleasure—it is possible for people to go there with that end in view—you will go from New York to Jacksonville via the Pennsylvania and Atlantic coast lines and there take the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad, although part of this “railway” journey consists of a sail on the Gulf of Mexico, from Tampa.
The island, with all its objectionable features, has churches of different denominations, it has convents, good schools, and has one large substantial and beautiful brick and stone building for a custom house, for which the government appropriated one hundred thousand dollars.
Key West has a police force numbering fourteen officers, including men of all colors and several nationalities.
ST. AUGUSTINE.
AN ANCIENT CITY MODERNIZED.
St. Augustine, Fla., Feb. 8, 1891.
What a contrast, to leave the dust and dirt of Key West, its unpaved roadways, full of deep ruts, large holes and great gullies: Key West, with its mixed population of twenty thousand negroes, Cubans, Chinamen and white folks: Key West, minus sidewalks, and minus many evidences of a high state of civilization: what a contrast is it to arrive in this beautiful city of the South, with its smooth-paved streets, its clean and aristocratic air, and its three wondrously beautiful Spanish hotels, all within speaking distance of each other. It is like leaping, if I may use such an expression, from hades to heaven.
The changes here within the past three years are great. Most important to the tourist is the erection of a railway bridge which crosses the St. John’s River. Three years ago you were obliged to stop at Jacksonville if you approached from the north; if from the south, you steamed across on a ferry-boat from Palatka. Now you take your seat in a drawing-room car at Jersey City, in the North, or at Tampa, if you approach from the South, and you need not leave the car until the conductor calls out “St. Augustine”—thirty-one hours by vestibuled train from New York, twelve hours by the West India Fast Mail from the Gulf, at Tampa.
As to other changes, much land has been reclaimed from the river, miles of roadway have been asphalted and paved with wooden blocks; the old fort is being restored, for which work the government has appropriated $15,000; many new houses have been built, all of coquina and in the Moorish style; to the oldest house in the town has been added a new stone tower; there has been erected a new City Hall, which includes a fine market; and to crown it all, as it were, there is a new church, a Memorial Presbyterian Church, built in memory of the beautiful daughter Mr. Flagler lost two years ago. The structure is so attractive, so pleasing to the eye, that in driving away from it you find yourself constantly turning around to keep its graceful architectural lines in view as long as possible.
It is probably not possible to enhance the splendor of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, the drawing-room of which, with its magnificent proportions, its onyx fire-place, its ceiling decorations, its rich carpets and furniture, and its rare paintings by Bridgman, Koppay, and other artists, is not rivalled by any other hotel in the world. To call it palatial is no compliment to “the Ponce” parlor, for I have seen no apartments in royal palaces that are more pleasing, and I have been favored with a view of many palaces in many countries. But the approaches to the great hotel and its own grounds have been improved and are now finished.
The same remarks will apply to the exterior of the Alcazar Hotel, the smooth and pleasant walk around the outside of which measures just half a mile. The colored boys know: they use it semi-occasionally for a foot or bicycle race: “twice around the Alcazar is one mile” they will tell you.
One of the novel features of this establishment is a swimming pool, into which the sulphur water rushes up from the artesian well with great force. There is room in the pool (40 by 120 feet) for scores of swimmers, and there is always a number of visitors looking from the galleries above on the lively scene below. With the mercury ranging between 70 and 80 the sulphur water is indeed refreshing; and they say it is quite invigorating. Temperature of the water, 75 degrees.
In the Hotel Cordova you will notice some changes, for the indefatigable manager, E. N. Wilson, is never content with his efforts. There is a new dining-room for instance. The best seems not good enough for Mr. Wilson, and his critical eye is always finding some way to improve the house and to add to its comfort. He has redecorated the parlor. The walls are now richly papered but the tints are not satisfactory—to Mr. Wilson. The furniture and carpets are in dark colors, so Mr. Wilson later on contemplates covering the walls with white and gold for an artistic contrast. Expensive? Yes, I should say so, but who cares for the expense? Mr. Flagler has a very long purse and Mr. Wilson has carte blanche. If the owner in planning these hotels had thought only of pecuniary profit probably they would never have come into existence in their present form. It is an idea with him to beautify the ancient city, and a half million dollars more or less make little or no difference to Mr. Flagler. Yet his hotels are conducted with a careful regard of business-like methods, although this is not apparent to the casual observer.
By the way, I have the very best of reasons for knowing that Mr. Flagler’s private acts of charity are many and munificent. After making full and proper inquiry into a case presented to him he always responds, but he never wants his generous acts to be made public. He will not thank me for this “mention,” I feel sure, but it is his due and possibly no harm can come from printing it.
Mr. Flagler has bought all the land around and about his three hotels, so that nobody can erect anything anywhere near him. He is not the man to do anything by halves.
The sitting-room in which this is penned is one of a suite I occupy in the castellated tower on a corner of the Hotel Cordova. The walls of the building are of gray coquina. Outside each window is a small and separate “kneeling balcony,” protected by ornamental iron railings, painted a reddish brown—such balconies as you see in some buildings in Madrid. The windows have white lace curtains and the shades are alternate blue and crimson—contrasting pleasantly with the neutral tint of the outer walls. To the east, within stone’s throw, is Cordova Park; to the west, the same distance, is the one-acre park of the Alcazar, with its tropical foliage, pretty walks and handsome fountain; while diagonally opposite, same distance again (about one hundred feet), loom up the terra-cotta turrets, towers, arches and gabled roofs of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, with its grand park of four and a half acres. This may convey some idea of the situation; to describe the scene requires the pen if not the pencil of an artist.
The Cordova drawing-room has its tables and chairs, and it contains some books also; not odd volumes picked up haphazard, but books bought and selected by an artist, book-worm and connoisseur. In the Cordova library you will find “Burke’s Peerage,” “Almanach de Gotha,” “Webster’s Royal Red Book,” “Kelly’s Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes,” “The County Families of the United Kingdom,” Debrett’s “House of Commons and the Judicial Bench,” “Castles and Abbeys of England” and “Stately Homes of England.” I have enumerated only a few of the ordinary volumes relating to Great Britain, but there are also rare and valuable tomes richly and beautifully illustrated, descriptive of life and scenes in different countries. For instance, one set in three volumes is “Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture at the International Exhibition,” by J. B. Waring, published in 1862. This mammoth work is richly illuminated, bound in red morocco, picked out with gold, and measures one foot by a foot and a half. It probably cost in London twenty-five pounds, and gives one some idea of the money and good taste expended in selecting the Cordova library. If one is fond of instructive books his taste can be gratified at the Cordova.
At the majority of hotels you eat ordinary oranges, brought to the table direct from the store-room: at the Cordova only Indian River oranges are used, selected “Indian Rivers,” and instead of coming direct from the store-room they come from a refrigerator. After this process they become Grateful and Comforting, to quote the names which Epps, the famous cocoa man, gave his two daughters. Perfect quiet reigns in the dining-room. The waiters are governed, well governed, by a head waiter whose head is level. He would even satisfy that “cranky critic,” as he has been called, Max O’Rell. The men, when serving dinner, wear dress coats, black trousers and white cravats. Instead of a loose waistcoat they wear a broad black sash around the waist, and instead of noisy boots they wear shoes having cloth uppers and rubber soles—black tennis shoes. Not a word is heard from the servants, except in polite response to an order, and they glide about like dark angels.
ABOUT TAMPA.
The Inn, Port Tampa, Fla., January 31, 1891.
Tampa is of interest historically, being the place where Ferdinand De Soto landed May 25, 1539. From here he started on his search for the mines of wealth supposed to exist in the new world, which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi river. It is here also that Narvaez, having obtained a grant of Florida from Charles V. of Spain, landed with a large force April 16, 1528.
Tampa is on the Gulf coast of Florida, two hundred and forty miles from Jacksonville. There are two trains daily with Pullman cars from Jacksonville and St. Augustine to Tampa, passing through Palatka, Sanford and Winter Park, both having direct connection with all Eastern and Western cities and one being a through train from New York.
Its rapid growth during the past seven years from about eight hundred inhabitants to as many thousands, has been brought about by the Plant system, which completed the South Florida railroad to Tampa for the purpose of developing Tampa commercially.
Dr. Long, a United States army surgeon, wrote of Fort Brooks, at Tampa, “This post has always been considered a delightful station.” Dr. Long’s reports and other reports to the surgeon-general at Washington show it to be one of the most healthful stations in the country.
Peninsulas have always been thought desirable because of their climate, which gives them advantages over other localities, and among peninsulas Florida is unrivalled because of its latitude and particularly as it is affected by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The investment of large capital in constructing a new hotel in Florida with the expectation of drawing to it the requisite patronage, demanded a knowledge of the requirements of winter tourists who visit the place for health or pleasure. Those requirements have been carefully studied by Mr. H. B. Plant, president of the Plant Investment Company, acting under the advice of eminent scientists, in the selection of Tampa. The new hotel is situated on the west side of the Hillsborough river where it empties into Tampa bay, opposite to and facing the city, which is within easy walking distance. From the river to the front of the hotel there are extensive lawns and flower beds, with orange, palm and other tropical trees, the hotel grounds and property including twenty-two acres. At the rear of the house there is a long stretch of pine lands.
As you view the house at a distance, from the deck of a steamer, or from a car window, with its long stretch of brick front, its iron and stone trimmings, its many towers with great and gorgeous silver-bronzed, balloon-shaped domes, each surmounted by a shining gold crescent, it impresses you at once as being a great oriental palace. And this idea is aided by the palms and other tropical trees and shrubs by which it is surrounded.
The oriental idea also strikes you as you enter. There is a grand “office,” the ceilings are supported by stout marble columns, and the music-room, the drawing-room, and all the minor rooms on the main floor are furnished in the very best taste, the matter of expense never seeming to be a question with those who selected the furniture and decorations in different parts of the world. It is safe to say that very few winter or summer resort hotels in this country are as richly furnished.
The hotel has been most thoroughly constructed and is practically fireproof, the outer and inner walls being of brick, with steel beams and concrete floors. There has been the most approved scientific work in drainage and plumbing, and there is an abundant supply of good water. On each floor the wide hall extends the entire length of the main building—512 feet. There are no inside rooms. Every room has the sun during some portion of the day, and a large number of suites have private baths. The house is heated by steam, in addition to which there are open fire-places in the rooms. The latest improvements have been introduced in lighting.
The other day I was in the Savannah depot of the Savannah, Florida and Western railroad waiting for the Florida special vestibuled train, when I heard a colored “depot hand” say that he wished the Tampa Bay Hotel had been built elsewhere. “Why, may I ask?” “Well,” answered my civil and sable informant, “I am tired of handlin’ de stuff for dat hotel; we’se been a doin’ it in dis yer depot for de whole year. But it’s comin’ putty near de end now, I guess. Las’ Saturday der went thro’ de depot three whole cyars filled with nutting else but cyarpets, all for dat house.” These remarks give one some faint idea of the size of the new hotel.
Mr. Plant did a great deal for Tampa when he ran his railroad down there, his lines of steamers from Tampa to Havana and Mobile have greatly helped the prosperity of the place, and now he has crowned his good work by putting up a magnificent hotel utterly regardless of the cost. If there was not already a Plant City in Florida, I should suggest to change the name of Tampa to Plant City. The house will accommodate four hundred guests; the rates are five dollars per day. It is only open during the winter, from Christmas until the first of April. But do not go to Tampa without your summer clothes.
All the above relates to the big new hotel at Tampa Bay, but all of it is written at the Inn, in Port Tampa, distant from Tampa Bay proper nine miles. The Inn is “little,” it accommodates only seventy-five guests, but it is a gem of a hotel. It is built on, or rather over, the water on piles, and is like an island, being actually surrounded by water. There is always a pleasant breeze on one side of the house, and a breeze is very grateful in this latitude. As I write, the mercury in a thermometer hanging outside my bedroom window marks 75 degrees; this is at 5 P.M., Saturday, January 31. We sleep with open windows, and nothing more than your pajama or a sheet is necessary for a covering.
Two sides of the dining-room are composed entirely of sliding-windows through which you can see wild ducks and fish in great quantities. I have seen wild ducks hauled in by the waiters through the open windows of this dining-room. You can throw a line into the water as you sit at dinner and if it be properly baited you will probably find a mullet at the end of the cord before you reach your café noir.
It goes without saying that there are good sailing and fishing at Port Tampa: Spanish mackerel and the pompano abound, the latter conceded by epicures to be one of the most exquisitely flavored fish in the world. Here also is the famous tarpon—Silver King he has been christened. In fact Port Tampa is a very paradise for sportsmen. It is easy to supply the table with oysters, fish and game in profusion. The table by the way is liberally provided, and the service by Swiss and French waiters is good.
The dining-room of the Tampa Inn reminds you of the dining-room of the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point Comfort, not for its size, but for its water surroundings, and the scene outside brings up recollections of the Surf Hotel at Fire Island. Picnic Island, across the Gulf one mile, might be a bit of Long Island. But there the similarity ends because the Inn, unlike the Surf Hotel, is a new house and is luxuriously furnished.
Steamers leave here weekly (every Tuesday) for Mobile, and tri-weekly (Monday, Thursday and Saturday), for Key West and Havana.
The railway depot conveying you to Tampa Bay (frequent daily trains), is at the door of the hotel, and from this same depot you can get a through car to Jacksonville or to New York.
The rates at the Inn are four and five dollars a day. It is proposed to keep it open all the year.
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA.
Monterey, Cal., March 25, 1891.
The name Monterey means Mountain King and was bestowed on the place in 1602 by Don Sebastian Vizcaino in honor of Jaspar de Zuniga, Conte de Monte de Rey, at that time Viceroy of Mexico. It was he who suggested and projected the expedition undertaken by Vizcaino.
When the members of this expedition returned to Spain the place returned to its primitive condition and nothing was heard of it till a band of Franciscan missionaries arrived on this coast in 1768, one hundred and sixty-eight years after the first discovery. This expedition came under the direction and guidance of the president of the band, Father Junipero Serra.
At the risk of being charged with sacrilege, I will interpolate right amid this ancient history a bit of fresh news imparted to me yesterday by a carriage driver. He showed me from the road a high plateau overlooking the sea, where plainly to the naked eye were to be seen preparations for receiving a statue, which is to be in place and to be dedicated before long. It will be in honor of Father Junipero before mentioned; it will cost ten thousand dollars, and the wife of Senator Leland Stanford will foot the bill. The site for the statue is a magnificent one, and if the work of art be worthy of its position, the city of Monterey will have something it may be proud of.
There’s a “History of Monterey County” by E. S. Harrison. I didn’t know before I came here and looked into it that Monterey was the first place settled in the State of California; that the first custom house in the
State (now an old rookery) was established here; that Monterey was once not only a bustling city, but the capital of the State. It is not a wholly deserted village now, but its commercial glory, like that of Newport, R. I., which was once a greater port of entry than New York, has departed, never to return. But Monterey will always be dear to the hearts of Californians, from its historic associations and connections.
“The first European lady to come to California,” says Harrison, “was the wife of Governor Fages, who arrived in Monterey in 1783. Their child, born about 1784, was probably the first child born in California of European parents.”
Monterey is one hundred and twenty-six miles from San Francisco, and is reached in four hours by the Coast Division of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. On the way, in San Mateo county (en passant, what musical names all these counties and mountains have), within ten to forty miles from the starting point, Fourth and Townsend streets, you pass the rural homes of San Francisco’s millionaires. Some are set in great forests of oak surrounded by acres of flowers in perennial bloom. Next, the beautiful city of San José comes in view, and a flourishing city it appears to be from the car windows. As the train rolls along you keep in sight for many miles the dome of the Lick Observatory, which glistens in the sunlight on the summit of Mount Hamilton.
And then you haven’t eyes enough to take in and enjoy the beautiful views of ocean, river, valley and mountain as the train dashes along—the Coast Range mountains on your left, on the right the Santa Cruz mountains, with the sun setting behind them—a glorious moving panorama.
After passing what is called the most fertile valley in the State Monterey is reached, if that be your destination, but there is a more important station one mile this side of Monterey. When the conductor calls out “Hotel del Monte” very few passengers in the cars remain seated, and the train speeds on to the sleepy old town of Monterey, almost empty.
The first action which the Pacific Improvement Company took when they concluded to make of this place a summer and winter resort was to purchase some land for the purpose, so they purchased seven thousand acres. Part of this domain was a forest, and of this they selected for their hotel “garden” a simple matter of one hundred and twenty-six acres. Forty acres of this they cultivated in flower-beds, lawns, vegetables and fruit; the rest they allowed to remain as nature left it, after hiring the services of a landscape gardener to lay out within their gates a few miles for drives and paths.
Then it occurred to them that it would be well to have a grand outside drive as an additional attraction, so they made one, cutting away mountain, forest and bluff; going through the woods, four or five miles; skirting the ocean for the same distance; altogether a nice little post-prandial drive of seventeen miles. But this is not much—for California. The drive being private property it is used only for the guests of the Hotel del Monte, the owners of which keep it in the best order, and in summer time have it watered. It is macadamized and in as good condition as the drives in Central Park, New York.
The road winds toward the bay through a forest of oaks and pines. For two or three miles it will be cool, dark, shaded and sweet smelling, and presently you get a view of the ocean. If the wind is high, as it was on the twenty-second of March, you will see foaming white-caps in the distance, and the spray dashing wildly on the bare brown rocks in the foreground, making a picture which, on the day we saw it, was awfully grand. I don’t mean this in the sense that girls do when they
say a thing is “awfully nice;” I mean that the boisterous waves were almost frightful with their impetuous rush and their terrible roar.
To quote dear old Fitz-Greene Halleck, whose statue in Central Park few recognize:
The winds of March were humming
Their parting song, their parting song.
It was a habit of my predecessor on the Home Journal, General George P. Morris, to publish annually this sweet song of Halleck’s in the Home Journal during the first week of March. It was a singular fancy of Morris’s and it pleased his brother poet.
But I am getting away from my story—and the surf. The seals didn’t seem to mind the roaring surf or howling wind. Their unearthly bark formed part of the grand chorus. They tossed their heads and rolled their ungainly bodies about with all the grace at their command, which is not saying much for their sylph-like movements. No; water is their element.
If you expect to see the seals of the same color as the sealskin sacques worn by women, you may not see the seals at all, for they match in color with the brownish gray rocks on which they romp. They have not gone through the process of “London dyeing.” I didn’t take the trouble to get out of the carriage and go down to the shore, so in this instance I accepted the driver’s word that there were five hundred seals on the rocks.
The cultivated grounds of the Hotel del Monte astonish you with their size and beauty and with the neatness and order in which they are kept. Probably not elsewhere is there such variety in horticulture. Everything from everywhere seems to thrive here. Nor do I know of any section of country where there are such noble oaks and pines, but probably the company claim too much when they say that “the garden is the finest, the most gorgeous, the richest and most varied in all the world.” A few years have elapsed since I examined Kensington and Kew closely, but it seems to me that the Tuileries gardens, which I saw one year ago, are richer, and I know that the gardens in Hyde Park, through which I strolled last August, are more pleasing to the eye and to the sense of smell. I speak of the floral display only; it must be remembered, however, that the Del Monte gardens are not at their best in March.
The trees are wonderful. I carry with me not only a thermometer but a tiny tape measure, the latter in my pocket. I asked the driver to stop as we were driving through the grounds, while I measured a pine and I found that it was four and a half yards in circumference near the ground. The driver told me how tall it was, but I will not quote him as I’m not giving you “California stories.” This pine was not pointed out nor did I select it for its size. There were others within a few feet of where this giant stood just as large, and for all I know there are hundreds on the ground much larger.
Of course the palm abounds, all trees of tropical growth are here; there are calla lilies for borders, violets, heliotrope, nasturtium, honeysuckle in wild profusion, and this in March, mind you. Is there ivy? “Well, rather,” as an Englishman might answer such a question. A leaf now lies on my table which measures five inches across. The grounds are in charge of a skilled landscape gardener with a force of thirty-five men—English, American and Chinese.
Foreigners from other lands may rail against the Chinese as much as they please, and our legislators may be right in excluding them lest they overrun the country, but it must be said in their favor that they are a peaceful, industrious set, and there are no better servants for indoor or outdoor work. Under certain conditions, however, they are as obstinate as mules. When you engage them you must be exceedingly careful in giving them instructions, for they will always continue to do what they are at first told to do; you cannot change their ways.
Mr. George Schönewald, manager of Hotel del Monte, while we were chatting in his office, illustrated it to me in this way: “Observe that Chinaman wiping carefully the casing of that white door. He was told when he first came here that he was to do that sort of work at this time of day, and if the heavens fall he’ll do it. If I were to ask him this minute to leave that door and polish this plate glass window he might obey, but it would upset him for the day, if not for all time. If you change your mind and want the work done in a different way you had better change your Chinaman, you can’t change their ways. But seven Chinamen will do the work of fourteen white men.”
And this brings me to the fact that nearly all the walls and all the interior woodwork of these great buildings are painted white. The lack of color becomes a little tiresome to the eye, but one thing comforts you, it is kept white—not a mark, not a spot to mar its perfection. Chinamen are always washing either doors, windows, surbase, or whatever part of the floor is not carpeted; all is pure white except the floor of the beautiful dining-room, which is of dark English oak kept highly polished.
The series of buildings is in the modern Gothic style, the main building three hundred and fifty feet front, with a central tower eighty feet high and wings or annexes two hundred and eighty feet long, showing an entire floor area of sixteen acres. An acre or two, more or less, is nothing—in California. The bed-room in which this is written is an ordinary room here, eighteen by sixteen feet. Even the marble wash-basin is worth measuring—three feet three in circumference. Running water, gas, fireplaces; and closets built with partition walls in every room. There are five hundred and ten rooms, and seven hundred people can be accommodated comfortably.
I am surprised here, as I have been elsewhere in California, at the low rates which obtain at hotels. A placard on the door of this well-furnished room, with beautiful walls and ceiling and a luxurious bed, reads: “Rate for this room, with board, for one person $3.50; for two $6.50. With bath-room $4 and $7 per day.” And in the bath-room there appears to be an inexhaustible supply of boiling water. There is no charge made in the ladies’ billiard room, which adjoins the parlor; no charge for use of boats on the twenty-acre lake.
If the plumbing is right, and so it appears to be, there is no trouble with the question of drainage, the ocean being at the door. The drinking water is brought from Carmel river, eighteen miles distant, in the mountains. A ton of ice per day is made on the premises. Some of the vegetables are raised near the hotel, and there is a dairy farm connected with the property measuring untold acres.
Native wines are sold at Hotel del Monte lower than I’ve seen them either here or abroad. It’s easy to be a “swell” at Del Monte. A half bottle of Zinfandel is opened and served at table for fifteen cents, and a very good wine it is, too, so far as pleasing my palate goes. But I don’t profess to be so well versed in wines as the late Sam Ward or the present Ward McAllister. There is a secret, however, in the low charge for California wine at Hotel del Monte—the company have their own vineyards. What haven’t they got? They have nothing less than a Steinway concert grand in the parlor and another in the ball-room.
There’s a feature that almost escaped being put down, and yet it is worthy of special mention. To the first floors in the two annexes you neither ascend nor descend any stairs; nor do you to the second floor. To the first floor you descend an inclined hall or arcade; to the second you ascend an inclined arcade. If you have a room even on the third floor you only walk up one flight of stairs, unless you prefer the elevator.
This is not a new idea, however. I remember being shown through an old, unused palace in Berlin which was constructed in the same way, A member of the royal house was weak in the knees from rheumatism and so was rolled on a sedan chair up and down in this way. The porter at this hotel, wheeling his truck “upstairs” loaded with trunks, reminded me of the rheumatic royalty.
In all hotels recently constructed there is an electric bell as well as an electric button in every room. If you leave word to be called in the morning, there’s no rapping outside your door—rapping loud enough to awaken every sleeper near your apartment. There is an electric button in the office which connects with a bell in your room, and to this call you will respond. There is no escape from it; you must get out of bed to stop the ringing.
The first Hotel del Monte, opened in 1880, was destroyed by fire: the new house was erected four years ago. The present manager, Mr. George Schönewald, opened the first house and superintended the construction of the second. As his name indicates, he is not to the manor born. He arrived in this country twenty-five years ago without a penny in his pocket, but with a determination to make a position for himself. There is no secret in his success. Anybody can gain success who will follow the Schönewald method. It was not “blind luck “ with him, but industry, unceasing industry, directed with unusual intelligence.
Schönewald fitted himself thoroughly for his position. On his arrival in this country he decided to be a practical confectioner, and not long after he received the highest salary ever paid in the State to a confectioner. Then he took to cooking and earned the highest salary ever paid to a cook in the State. Step by step has he moved from the very bottom round of the ladder to the management of one of the largest and finest hotels in the country.
Schönewald is a worker. He is supposed to take three meals a day, but sometimes his breakfast is not touched till late in the afternoon. From my window I have seen him driving about rapidly in a buggy before my toilet was completed; and your humble servant, as a general rule, is out of bed before seven A.M. The interests of the company first, his own comfort last, seems to be this manager’s motto.
Yes, your Germans are workers. Mrs. Schönewald is her husband’s helpmeet: she fills the position of housekeeper at Hotel del Monte, and that probably accounts for the bed-rooms being so comfortably furnished—a rocker here, an easy, arm-chair there, with a neat white “tidy” on the upholstered back. There’s nothing like a woman’s eye, a woman’s thoughtfulness in providing all the tasteful etceteras which make a home comfortable and complete.
I will close with a clipping from the tourist book, “To the Golden Gate,” issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad:—“The Eastern traveler coming to California’s coast and failing to see ‘Del Monte’ has indeed missed not everything, but a goodly part.”
