The house is managed by James H. Breslin and R. H. Southgate. It is not necessary to explain who these men are, and to commend them, at this late day, would be no compliment.
MAX O’RELL ON AMERICAN HOTELS.
M. Paul Blouet (Max O’Rell) is a brilliant writer and a clever, entertaining talker, but in his article in the North American Review for January, 1891, entitled “Reminiscences of American Hotels,” he shows that he lacks fairness as a critic, and that he writes without the necessary knowledge of his subject. His remarks concerning the American methods of conducting hotels may be amusing, but when he makes comparisons between English and American hotels and their systems, it is evident that as a critic he is open to criticism. In his opening page he says:
“When you enter a hotel not a salute, not a word, not a smile of welcome. The negro takes your bag and makes a sign that your case is settled. You follow him. For the time being you lose your personality and become No. 375, as you would in jail.”
The facts are just the contrary. The clerks, porters and waiters in American hotels are only too glad if they can learn your name. They will pronounce it and announce you on the smallest possible provocation. Max O’Rell’s remarks on this point would exactly fit if he were writing about some large hotels in London patronized by Americans. At those houses, the Langham excepted, you do not enter your name in a register, and you are known only by the number of the room you occupy. If a friend calls, his card will be carried about on a silver salver by a little page whose duty it is, in going through the halls and public rooms in search of you, to bawl out at the top of his voice not your name, but the number of the apartment you occupy; and to this you are expected to respond.
But people are not so apt to know the hotel customs which obtain in cities where they live, and that may account for M. Blouet’s ignorance.
This French-English humorist tries to make it appear that in every American hotel the fire-escape consists of “twenty yards of coiled rope.” I believe that the New York State Legislature expects all hotels in that State to make such provision, but if it is done in New York it is certainly not the case in other States, as I know, for I have lived at hotels in many States of the Union during the past few months, westward as far as California, and as far south as New Orleans.
Mr. O’Rell feels very much injured because order and method reign in the dining-room. He says:
“When you enter the dining-room you must not believe you can go and sit where you like. The chief waiter assigns you a seat and you must take it. I have constantly seen Americans stop on the threshold of the dining-room and wait until the chief waiter had returned from placing a guest to come and fetch them in their turn. I never saw them venture alone and take an empty seat without the sanction of the waiter.”