Until the reflux of population from the Rocky mountains, I suppose Washington will never be a metropolis of residence. But if it were an object with the inhabitants to make it more so, the advantages I have just enumerated, and a little outlay of capital and enterprise would certainly, in some degree, effect it. People especially who come from Europe, or have been accustomed to foreign modes of living, would be glad to live near a society composed of such attractive materials as the official and diplomatic persons at the seat of government. That which keeps them away is, principally, want of accommodation, and, in a less degree, it is want of comfortable accommodation in the other cities which drives them back to Europe. In Washington you must either live at an hotel or a boarding-house. In either case, the mode of life is only endurable for the shortest possible period, and the moment Congress rises, every sufferer in these detestable places is off for relief. The hotels are crowded to suffocation; there is an utter want of privacy in the arrangement of the suites of apartments; the service is ill ordered, and the prices out of all sense or reason. You pay for that which you have not, and you can not get by paying for it that which you want.
The boarding-house system is worse yet. To possess but one room in privacy, and that opening on a common passage; to be obliged to come to meals at certain hours, with chance table companions, and no place for a friend, and to live entirely in your bedroom or in a public parlor, may truly be called as abominable a routine as a gentleman could well suffer. Yet the great majority of those who come to Washington are in one or the other of these two categories.
The use of lodgings for strangers or transient residents in the city does not, after all the descriptions in books, seem at all understood in our country. This is what Washington wants, but it is what every city in the country wants generally. Let us describe it as if it was never before heard of, and perhaps some enlightened speculator may advance us half a century in some of the cities, by creating this luxury.
Lodgings of the ordinary kind in Europe generally consist of the apartments on one floor. The house, we will suppose, consists of three stories above the basement, and each floor contains a parlor, bedroom, and dressing-room, with a small antechamber. (This arrangement of rooms varies, of course, and a larger family occupies two floors.) These three suites of apartments are neatly furnished; bed-clothes, table-linen, and plate, if required, are found by the proprietor, and in the basement story usually lives a man and his wife, who attend to the service of the lodgers; i. e., bring water, answer the doorbell, take in letters, keep the rooms in order, make the fires, and, if it is wished, do any little cookery in case of sickness. These people are paid by the proprietor, but receive a fee for extra service, and a small gratuity, at departure, from the lodger. It should be added to this, that it is not infra. dig. to live in the second or third story.
In connexion with lodgings, there must be of course a cook or restaurateur within a quarter of a mile. The stranger agrees with him for his dinner, to consist of so many dishes, and to be sent to him at a certain hour. He gives notice in the morning if he dines out, buys his own wine of the wine-merchant, and thus saves two heavy items of overcharge in the hotel or boarding-house. His own servant makes his tea or coffee (and for this purpose has access to the fire in the basement,) and does all personal service, such as brushing clothes, waiting at table, going on errands, &c., &c. The stranger comes in, in short, at a moment’s warning, brings nothing but his servant and baggage, and finds himself in five minutes at home, his apartments private, and every comfort and convenience as completely about him as if he had lived there for years.
At from ten to fourteen dollars a week, such apartments would pay the proprietor handsomely, and afford a reasonable luxury to the lodger. A cook would make a good thing of sending in a plain dinner for a dollar a head (or more if the dinner were more expensive,) and at this rate, a family of two or more persons might have a hundred times the comfort now enjoyed at hotels, at certainly half the cost.
We have been seduced into a very unsentimental chapter of “ways and means,” but we trust the suggestions, though containing nothing new, may not be altogether without use. The want of some such thing as we have recommended is daily and hourly felt and complained of.
ARTICLES FROM THE JOURNAL,
OF WHICH THE AUTHOR WAS EDITOR,