Chapter V.
Lodgings.
The whole system of providing for travellers at hotels and lodging houses in England is entirely different from the one adopted in America. In America all persons, in respect to the rights and privileges which they enjoy, are, in theory, on a footing of perfect equality; and thus, in all public resorts, such as hotels, boarding houses, public places of amusement, and travelling conveyances, all classes mingle together freely and without reserve. At the hotels and boarding houses, they breakfast, dine, and sup together at the public tables; and even if they have private parlors of their own, they do not, ordinarily, confine themselves to them, but often seek society and amusement in the public drawing rooms. At the places of amusement and in the public conveyances they all pay the same price, and are entitled to the same privileges, and they only get the best seats when they come early to secure them. This, in America, is the general rule; though of course
there are many exceptions, especially in the great cities. In England it is altogether different. There society is divided into a great many different ranks and degrees, the people of each of which keep themselves entirely separate and distinct from all the others. The cars of the railway trains are divided into four or five classes, and travellers take one or the other of them, according to their wealth or their rank, and pay accordingly. In the hotels and lodging houses every arrangement is made to keep each guest or party of guests as separate as possible from all the rest. There are no public tables or public drawing rooms. Each party, on its arrival at the hotel, takes a suit of rooms, consisting, at least, of a sitting room and bed room, and every thing that they require is served to them separately there, just as if there were no other guests in the house. It is the same with the boarding houses, or lodging houses as they are commonly called. Each boarder has his own apartment, and whatever he calls for is sent to him there. He pays so much a day for his room or rooms, and then for his board he is charged for every separate article that he orders; so that, so far as he takes his meals away from his lodgings, either by breakfasting or dining, or taking tea at the houses of friends, or at public coffee rooms,
he has nothing to pay at his lodging house excepting the rent of his rooms.
There are a great many of these lodging houses about London. They are found on all the side streets leading off from all the great thoroughfares. They are known, generally, by a little card in the window, with the words, "Furnished Apartments," written upon it. Mr. George and Rollo found lodgings, as was stated in the last chapter, in a house of this kind, situated in Northumberland Court.
Northumberland Court is so named from its being situated on a part of what were formerly the grounds of the town mansion of the famous dukes of Northumberland. I have already stated, some chapters back, that in former times the English nobles built magnificent houses on the great banks of the Thames, between the road called the Strand, which led from Westminster towards London, and the banks of the river. Since the days when these mansions were erected, the whole space around them, between the Strand and the river, has become completely filled with streets, squares, courts, and lanes, the names of which were often derived from those of the families on whose grounds they were built. The court where Mr. George and Rollo found their lodgings was called Northumberland Court for this reason.