In a small enclosure called a bar is a woman who books your name, keeps an account of everything you have, making a charge of each item separately, down to a cigar, necessitating an enormous amount of book-keeping. In this bar are others who draw ale, or extract spirits from casks ranged in the enclosure, as they may be ordered by guests in their own room or the "coffee-room," into carefully-marked measures, so as to be sure that no one gets beyond his sixpence worth of whiskey, or gin, or brandy; but there is one thing certain: the guests, as a general thing, get a far better quality of liquor than we in America, where it is next to an impossibility to get even a good article of that great American, national drink, whiskey, pure and unadulterated.
These bar-maids can give you no information except about the price of rooms, meals, and refreshments. Next comes the head waiter, who, with the porter, appears to "run" the hotel. This worthy must be feed to insure attention. If you are a single man, you can dine well enough in the coffee-room, if you order your dinner at a certain time in advance. However, the great London hotels are slowly becoming Americanized in some departments: one improvement is that of having what is called a "ladies' coffee-room," i. e., a public dining-room, and a table d'hote, and not compelling a gentleman and wife to dine in solemn state in a private room, under the inspection of a waiter. Between stated hours, anything in the magnificent bills of fare, for the three meals, is ready on demand at an American hotel; for instance, the guest may sit down to breakfast at any time between six and eleven; to dinner at one, three, and five; to tea at six to eight, and supper ten to twelve; and anything he orders will be served instanter: the meals at those times are always ready. In London, nothing is ever ready, and everything must be ordered in advance.
It is a matter of positive wonderment to me that the swarms of Englishmen, whom one meets in the well-kept hotels of Berne, Lucerne, Wiesbaden, Baden Baden, &c., can, after enjoying their comforts and conveniences, endure the clumsy manner of hotel-keeping, and the discomforts of the London hotels, or that the landlords of the latter can persist in hanging back so obstinately from adopting the latest improvements.
The new and large hotels, however, are a great improvement on the old style, and the best thing for a fresh American tourist to do, before going to London, is to get some fellow-countryman, who has had experience in the hotels and lodgings of that metropolis, to "post him up" as to which will the best suit his taste and desires.
My first night in London, spent at the Langham, which is at the West End, or fashionable quarter, was anything but a quiet one; the hotel being, as it were, right in the track between various resorts of the aristocracy and their residences, and the time the height of the season. There was one unceasing roar of private carriages and cabs from ten P. M. till three A. M., which banished sleep from my eyelids, and made me long for the quiet of the well-kept little English and Scotch country inns that I had previously been enjoying.
Accommodations were sought and found in a less fashionable, but far more central part of the city, where more comfort, attention, and convenience were obtained at a less rate than at this English hotel on the American plan; and it was not long ere I found that my own experience at Langham's was that of numerous other Americans, and that the pleasantest way to live in London is "in apartments" if one stays there any length of time—that is, furnished lodgings. The English themselves, when visiting London, stay with a friend if possible, always avoiding a hotel; and it is probably the adherence to this old custom, by the better classes, that causes the indifference to the quality of what is furnished for public accommodation in their own capital.
I thought my experiences in New York streets had prepared me for London; but on emerging into the London streets for the first time I found my mistake. I was fairly stunned and bewildered by the tremendous rush of humanity that poured down through Oxford Street, through Holborn, on to the city, or otherwise down towards White Chapel, Lombard Street, the Bank, and the Exchange.
Great omnibuses, drawn by three horses abreast, thundered over the pavement; four-wheel cabs, or "four-wheelers," a sort of compressed American carriages, looking as though resuscitated from the last stages of dissolution, rattled here and there; the Hansom cabs, those most convenient of all carriages, dashed in and out, hither and thither, in the crowd of vehicles; great brewery drays, with horses like elephants, plodded along with their loads; the sidewalks swarmed with a moving mass of humanity, and many were the novelties that met my curious eye.
The stiff, square costume of the British merchant; little boys of ten, with beaver hats like men; Lord Dundrearys with eye-glasses such as I had never seen before, except upon the stage at the theatre; ticket porters with their brass labels about their necks; policemen in their uniform; officers and soldiers in theirs; all sorts of costermongers with everything conceivable to sell, and all sorts of curious vehicles, some with wood enough in them for three of a similar kind in America.
The drivers of the London omnibuses feel the dignity of their position,—they do. It is the conductor who solicits passengers, takes the pay, and regulates the whole business of the establishment. The driver, or rather the "coachman," drives; he wears a neat top-coat, a beaver hat, and a pair of driving gloves; he drives with an air. You can attract his attention from the sidewalk, and he will "pull up," but he does it with a sort of calm condescension; the conductor or cad, on the other hand, is ever on the alert; his eyes are in every direction; he signals a passenger in the crowd invisible to all but him; he continually shouts the destination of his vehicle, but sometimes in a patois unintelligible except to the native Londoner. As for instance, I was once standing in Holborn, waiting for a 'bus for the Bank; one passed, which from its inscription I did not recognize, the conductor ejaculating, as he looked on every side, "Abink-wychiple, Binkwychiple," when suddenly he detected us in the throng, and marked us as strangers looking for a 'bus; in a twinkling he was down from his perch, and upon the sidewalk.