Chaos would reign indeed if the regular guests of a hotel had no regular seats, and if every newcomer were allowed to sit where he pleased. Of course the head waiter assigns seats. This good custom obtains in England and France as it does elsewhere; without it there would be confusion for all concerned.
It would be strange if such a close and keen observer, as Max O’Rell certainly is, did not make some good points in such a labored article. He makes one when he objects to the solemn, almost funereal air which pervades an American dining-room. People can be well mannered and yet be and appear to be, in good spirits, whereas we seem to make a business, a sad business of eating—it cannot be called “dining.” You seldom or never hear such a thing as a laugh in our hotel dining-rooms, and yet everybody knows that laughter is the best aid to digestion. There is a time for everything, and when should there be good cheer if not at dinner time?
O’Rell shows that he is unfair and uninformed when he is discussing some of the important features of our hotels, but he scores another good point when he talks of the shameful waste of food in American hotels. I quote in full his remarks on that head. They cannot be too often repeated:
“The thing which, perhaps, strikes me most disagreeably in the American hotel dining-room is the sight of the tremendous waste of food that goes on at every meal. No European, I suppose, can fail to be struck with this; but to a Frenchman it would naturally be most remarkable. In France where, I venture to say, people live as well as anywhere else, if not better, there is a perfect horror of anything like waste of good food. It is to me, therefore, a repulsive thing to see the wanton manner in which some Americans will waste at one meal enough to feed several fellow creatures.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS.
THE HOME JOURNAL,