The transition from travelling facilities to the telegraphic and postal services is natural. The telegraphs of the United States are not in the hands of the government, but are controlled by private companies, of which the Western Union, with its headquarters in New York, is facile princeps. This company possesses the largest telegraph system in the world, having 21,000 offices and 750,000 miles of wire. It also leases or uses seven Atlantic cables. In this, however, as in many other cases, size does not necessarily connote quality. My experiences may (like the weather) have been exceptional, and the attempt to judge of this Hercules by the foot I saw may be wide of the mark; but here are three instances which are at any rate suspicious:
I was living at Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia, and left one day about 2 P.M. for the city, intending to return for dinner. On the way, however, I made up my mind to dine in town and go to the theatre, and immediately on my arrival at Broad-street station (about 2.15 P.M.) telegraphed back to this effect. When I reached the house again near midnight, I found the messenger with my telegram ringing the bell! Again, a friend of mine in Philadelphia sent a telegram to me one afternoon about a meeting in the evening; it reached me in Germantown, at a distance of about five miles, at 8 o'clock the following morning. Again, I left Salisbury (N.C.) one morning about 9 A.M. for Asheville, having previously telegraphed to the baggage-master at the latter place about a trunk of mine in his care. My train reached Asheville about 5 or 6 P.M. I went to the baggage-master, but found he had not received my wire. While I was talking to him, one of the train-men entered and handed it to him. It had, apparently, been sent by hand on the train by which I had travelled! This telegraphic giant may, of course, have accidentally and exceptionally put his wrong foot foremost on those occasions; but such are the facts.
The postal service also struck me as on the whole less prompt and accurate than that of Great Britain. The comparative infrequency of fully equipped post-offices is certainly an inconvenience. There are letter-boxes enough, and the commonest stamps may be procured in every drug-store (and of these there is no lack!) or even from the postmen; but to have a parcel weighed, to register a letter, to procure a money-order, or sometimes even to buy a foreign stamp or post-card, the New Yorker or Philadelphian has to go a distance which a Londoner or Glasgowegian would think distinctly excessive. It appears from an official table prepared in 1898 that about half the population of the United States live outside the free delivery service, and have to call at the post-office for their letters. On the other hand, the arrangements at the chief post-offices are very complete, and the subdivisions are numerous enough to prevent the tedious delays of the offices on the continent of Europe. The registration fee (eight cents) is double that of England. The convenient "special delivery stamp" (ten cents) entitles a letter to immediate delivery by special messenger. The tendency for the establishment of slight divergency in language between England and America is seen in the terms of the post-office as in those of the railway. A letter is "mailed," not "posted;" the "postman" gives way to the "letter-carrier;" a "post-card" is expanded into a "postal-card." The stranger on arrival at New York will be amused to see the confiding way in which newspaper or book packets, too large for the orifice, are placed on the top of the street letter-boxes (affixed to lamp-posts), and will doubtless be led to speculate on the different ways and instincts of the street Arabs of England and America. A second reflection will suggest to him the superior stability of the New York climate. On what day in England could we leave a postal packet of printed matter in the open air with any certainty that it would not be reduced to pulp in half an hour by a deluge of rain?
No remarks on the possible inferiority of the American telegraph and postal systems would be fair if unaccompanied by a tribute to the wonderful development of the use of the telephone. New York has (or had very recently) more than twice as many subscribers to the telephonic exchanges as London, and some American towns possess one telephone for every twenty inhabitants, while the ratio in the British metropolis is 1:3,000. In 1891 the United States contained 240,000 miles of telephone wires, used by over 200,000 regular subscribers. In 1895 the United Kingdom had about 100,000 miles of wire. The Metropolitan telephone in New York alone has 30,000 miles of subterranean wire and about 9,000 stations. The great switch-board at its headquarters is 250 feet long, and accommodates the lines of 6,000 subscribers. Some subscribers call for connection over a hundred times a day, and about one hundred and fifty girls are required to answer the calls.
The generalisations made in travellers' books about the hotels of America seem to me as fallacious as most of the generalisations about this chameleon among nations. Some of the American hotels I stayed at were about the best of their kind in the world, others about the worst, others again about half-way between these extremes. On the whole, I liked the so-called "American system" of an inclusive price by the day, covering everything except such purely voluntary extras as wine; and it seems to me that an ideal hotel on this system would leave very little to wish for. The large American way of looking at things makes a man prefer to give twenty shillings per day for all he needs and consumes rather than be bothered with a bill for sixteen to seventeen shillings, including such items (not disdained even by the swellest European hotels) as one penny for stationery or a shilling for lights. The weak points of the system as at present carried on are its needless expense owing to the wasteful profusion of the management, the tendency to have cast-iron rules for the hours within which a guest is permitted to be hungry, the refusal to make any allowance for absence from meals, and the general preference for quantity over quality. It is also a pity that baths are looked upon as a luxury of the rich and figure as an expensive extra; it is seldom that a hotel bath can be obtained for less than two shillings. There would seem, however, to be no reason why the continental table d'hôte system should not be combined with the American plan. The bills of fare at present offered by large American hotels, with lists of fifty to one hundred different dishes to choose from, are simply silly, and mark, as compared with the table d'hôte of, say, a good Parisian hotel, a barbaric failure to understand the kind of meal a lady or gentleman should want. To prepare five times the quantity that will be called for or consumed is to confess a lack of all artistic perception of the relations of means and end. The man who gloats over a list of fifty possible dishes is not at all the kind of customer who deserves encouragement. The service would also be improved if the waiters had not to carry in their heads the heterogeneous orders of six or eight people, each selecting a dozen different meats, vegetables, and condiments. The European or à la carte system is becoming more and more common in the larger cities, and many houses offer their patrons a choice of the two plans; but the fixed-price system is almost universal in the smaller towns and country districts. In houses on the American system the price generally varies according to the style of room selected; but most of the inconvenience of a bedchamber near the top of the house is obviated by the universal service of easy-running "elevators" or lifts. (By the way, the persistent manner in which the elevators are used on all occasions is often amusing. An American lady who has some twenty shallow steps to descend to the ground floor will rather wait patiently five minutes for the elevator than walk downstairs.)
Many of the large American hotels have defects similar to those with which we are familiar in their European prototypes. They have the same, if not an exaggerated, gorgeousness of bad taste, the same plethora of ostentatious "luxuries" that add nothing to the real comfort of the man of refinement, the same pier glasses in heavy gilt frames, the same marble consoles, the same heavy hangings and absurdly soft carpets. On the other hand, they are apt to lack some of the unobtrusive decencies of life, which so often mark the distinction between the modest home of a private gentleman and the palace of the travelling public. Indeed, it might truthfully be said that, on the whole, the passion for show is more rampant among American hotel-keepers than elsewhere. They are apt to be more anxious to have all the latest "improvements" and inventions than to ensure the smooth and easy running of what they already have. You will find a huge "teleseme" or indicator in your bedroom, on the rim of which are inscribed about one hundred different objects that a traveller may conceivably be supposed to want; but you may set the pointer in vain for your modest lemonade or wait half an hour before the waiter answers his complicated electric call. The service is sometimes very poor, even in the most pretentious establishments. On the other hand, I never saw better service in my life than that of the neat and refined white-clad maidens in the summer hotels of the White Mountains, who would take the orders of half-a-dozen persons for half a dozen different dishes each, and execute them without a mistake. It is said that many of these waitresses are college-girls or even school-mistresses, and certainly their ladylike appearance and demeanour and the intelligent look behind their not infrequent spectacles would support the assertion. It gave one a positive thrill to see the margin of one's soup-plate embraced by a delicate little pink-and-white thumb that might have belonged to Hebe herself, instead of the rawly red or clumsily gloved intruder that we are all too familiar with. The waiting of the coloured gentleman is also pleasant in its way to all who do not demand the episcopal bearing of the best English butler. The smiling darkey takes a personal interest in your comfort, may possibly enquire whether you have dined to your liking, is indefatigable in ministering to your wants, slides and shuffles around with a never-failing bonhomie, does everything with a characteristic flourish, and in his neat little white jacket often presents a most refreshing cleanliness of aspect as compared with the greasy second-hand dress coats of the European waiter.
As a matter of fact, so much latitude is usually allowed for each meal (breakfast from 8 to 11, dinner from 12 to 8, and so on) that it is seldom really difficult to get something to eat at an American hotel when one is hungry. At some hotels, however, the rules are very strict, and nothing is served out of meal hours. At Newport I came in one Sunday evening about 8 o'clock, and found that supper was over. The manager actually allowed me to leave his hotel at once (which I did) rather than give me anything to eat. The case is still more absurd when one arrives by train, having had no chance of a square meal all day, and is coolly expected to go to bed hungry! The genuine democrat, however, may take what comfort he can from the thought that this state of affairs is due to the independence of the American servants, who have their regular hours and refuse to work beyond them.
The lack of smoking-rooms is a distinct weak point in American hotels. One may smoke in the large public office, often crowded with loungers not resident in the hotel, or may retire with his cigar to the bar-room; but there is no pleasant little snuggery provided with arm-chairs and smokers' tables, where friends may sit in pleasant, nicotine-wreathed chat, ringing, when they want it, for a whiskey-and-soda or a cup of coffee.
American hotels, even when otherwise good, are apt to be noisier than European ones. The servants have little idea of silence over their work, and the early morning chambermaids crow to one another in a way that is very destructive of one's matutinal slumbers. Then somebody or other seems to crave ice-water at every hour of the day or night, and the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of the ice-pitcher in the corridors becomes positively nauseous when one wants to go to sleep. The innumerable electric bells, always more or less on the go, are another auditory nuisance.
While we are on the question of defects in American hotels, it should be noticed that the comfortable little second-class inns of Great Britain are practically unknown in the United States. The second-class inns there are run on the same lines as the best ones; but in an inferior manner at every point. The food is usually as abundant, but it is of poorer quality and worse cooked; the beds are good enough, but not so clean; the table linen is soiled; the sugar bowls are left exposed to the flies from week-end to week-end; the service is poor and apt to be forward; and (last, but not least) the manners of the other guests are apt to include a most superfluous proportion of tobacco-chewing, expectorating, an open and unashamed use of the toothpick, and other little amenities that probably inflict more torture on those who are not used to them than would decorous breaches of the Decalogue.