“In heaven’s name, why can’t I have a milk and soda?”
His answer was concise, and closed the discussion in one direction.
“Bekase th’ manager’s gone out, an’ he has th’ key of the kitchen, an’ nothin’ k’n be served till he comes back at one o’clock.”
Then I recognised, as they say, what I was up against, and I pleaded hard. But it was of no avail, I had to wait until one o’clock, and then—while milk could be had in plenty, there was no soda! So I was as badly off as ever, for milk alone in the state I was enduring was so much poison to me. I could not understand it, nor can I now. So difficult is it to understand that I never expect to be believed when I tell the following story. The next evening I was to lecture in the auditorium, a huge, umbrella-shaped building set apart for the purpose, and before the lecture I sought the janitor, and endeavoured to enlist his sympathies in the matter of soda and milk, at any rate. I assumed that he would be as surprised as I was that soda was not to be got in so highly civilised a place, and apparently I was right, for he responded at once with a snort of contempt for the fools, as he called them, and assured me that he would get me my milk and soda in two ticks. I gave him a dollar, and in less than ten minutes he returned with a jug of milk and a pound of washing soda! I know I can never be believed, but I declare that this is true.
But I can honestly say that I never but once had as good a meal anywhere in America, and I always stayed at the best hotels I could find (private houses I only know of two), as any workman can get in London for eightpence. The exception was at President Roosevelt’s table at Oyster Bay. We had lamb cutlets, potatoes and cauliflower, with rice pudding to follow, and it was all delicious. It made me feel quite homesick. But it was unique. I never got it again. In Canada it is practically the same, though I will gladly admit of an exception in the case of the Château Frontenac at Quebec, and, oh, yes, there is the “Empress” at Victoria, Vancouver Island. The “Prince George” at Toronto was better than any United States Hotel I ever stayed in, and quite equal to any English hotel I know, but that is not saying a great deal.
As to the food in the trains, it makes me shudder to think of it. I really cannot say all I know to be true about it, for fear of being thought extravagantly biased, but in very truth I nearly starved on the C.P.R. I have had lamb (so called) black and tough as leather, lake trout that was positively putrid, and—but there, it is useless to make a list. When I say that I was reduced to eating baked beans and bread at every meal, and that I lost a stone in weight in one month, I best convey the straits to which I was reduced. To my mind the strangest thing about the whole business was that when we got on board the boat to go from Vancouver to Victoria, although presumably the catering arrangements were the same, the food was excellent. I could not wish for anything better, but I tried in vain to discover any reason for the difference.
As a matter of actual experience I never realised how good and comfortable a place a hotel could be until I went to Australia seven years ago. During my previous visits as a lad and a young man I had learned to love and admire Australasia, because of its lavish distribution of food at low prices. It will hardly be believed, but it is a fact that when I went to Lyttelton in 1878 a carpenter could earn 15s. per day, and could get board and lodging for 15s. per week, the board meaning three huge meals with meat, vegetables, bread, and pastry, also tea, and coffee and beer. Sixpence was the ordinary workman’s price for a meal in an eating-house at all the ports in Australasia, and better, more copious meals it would be hard to find. But then Australasia had not, and never has, as far as I know, handed over her food supply to a meat trust, and thereby bound her people, no matter what their station in life may be, to eat whatever garbage Chicago chooses to dole out to them.
Still, those early experiences of mine were only of eating-houses; I never stayed in a hotel, of course. But on this last visit, after I had become thoroughly well acquainted with hotels in Great Britain, America and the Continent, I stayed in hotels all over Australasia, and I firmly believe as a result of that experience that they can safely, or that they could safely, be spoken of generally as the best hotels in the world. But here arises a small difficulty. Every little pub, no matter how small, ordinary or low class, calls itself a hotel, and strangers are apt to be misled by the title. Still, titles are always misleading people everywhere, so the hotel business in Australasia cannot claim any monopoly in misnaming.
What I wish to point out from actual experience, and as entirely unbiased as any opinion can ever be, is that in Australasia, as in no other country that I have ever visited, may be found, in the great cities as in remote country places, hotels which will give the traveller an abundance of excellent food well and plainly cooked, with a great variety of beautiful vegetables also in plentiful quantities, such as a man would expect in his own comfortable home. Not only so, but the tariffs charged were extremely reasonable, affording the strongest possible contrast to Canada, where I believe the hotel charges are the highest, and the treatment generally the worst, in the world. But these were not the only matters I saw to admire in Australasian hotels. In all my experience of them I was never charged anything beyond the agreed daily tariff—there were no extras. And I was always served with early morning tea and afternoon tea, while for those who liked to eat between meals there was food at 11 a.m., no table laid, and again at about 10 p.m. And baths were looked upon as a necessary of life, and never charged for. Nor were there any tips.
Now I am perfectly well aware that hotel keepers everywhere else, especially in my own beloved country, will, if they believe these statements (a very large “if,” by the way), declare that such a procedure on their part would only spell bankruptcy. Well, of course, I do not know their business, but I may be permitted to disbelieve such a statement entirely. In Australasia wages are higher, rent is higher, food is certainly no cheaper, and hotel keepers certainly not philanthropists, yet the thing is done, and done as I have said.