In some hotels there is no public bar whatever, and drinks are served to order in the dining and smoking-rooms, or in the private apartments. Smoking is usually forbidden in the corridors, and sometimes the stranger who ventures to light a cigar in his private room will be told that he is violating the rules, and must go to the smoking-room.

In the last few years the English appear to have taken a hint from their transatlantic cousins in the way of hotel-keeping, and several establishments containing many of the American features have sprung into existence. The most of them have been successful, and it is probable that the crop will increase.

Bedrooms in the English hotels are usually larger than in American houses, and furnished on a more liberal scale. The beds are spacious, and frequently you find an old-fashioned four-poster of considerable antiquity, together with others that were fashioned in the present time. A hotel in Liverpool boasts of a bed in which Oliver Cromwell once slept, and certainly he could have occupied it without being cramped for space. Those who are liable to colds and rheumatic pains should be particular to have the sheets well aired and dried before retiring; the moist climate of the British Islands is apt to leave a disagreeable dampness on bed-linen, and make it very detrimental to the general health. Many a man has taken a severe cold by sleeping in damp sheets on his arrival in England, and discovered to his sorrow that his recovery was a thing of several weeks, if not longer. The prevailing moisture of the United Kingdom is an excellent thing for the ruddy cheeks of the women, and beneficial to the potato crop, but the stranger is not usually enamored of it, especially if he comes from a region where dry atmosphere is the fashion.

There are only a very few hotels where the traveler is received on the American system, and pays a lump sum per day for everything. The engagement is nearly always for the room alone, and all meals are charged extra, and may be taken wherever the customer chooses. There is an extra item for "attendance," and custom has fixed this at one shilling and sixpence at the majority of the English hotels. Some hotels compel you to breakfast in the house, or at all events they charge you for that meal, whether you take it or not, but the dinner is quite optional with you. The dining-room is generally known as the "coffee-room," but in some hotels there is a larger hall in addition to the coffee-room, where the table d'hote dinner is served. One can breakfast very comfortably in the coffee-room, as he will find the morning papers there, and frequently a stock of guide-books and writing materials, with which he may amuse himself while his chop or steak is being prepared. Chops, steaks, ham and eggs, and cold meats are the principal items of an English breakfast, and there is hardly any variation from day to day.

If the dinner is served in the continental style, the traveler has no choice, but takes the courses in the order in which they are brought. A dinner "off the joint" is another thing, and a peculiarly British institution. Soup is served, and then fish, and then comes the joint, which is the piece de resistance of the day. A huge round of beef, smoking hot from the fire, or perhaps an equally huge piece of mutton, is mounted on a small table whose legs terminate in casters; by means of this table the joint is wheeled before each customer, who indicates to the carver the exact morsel he desires. There can be no deception, and no opportunity to serve up slices that have been warmed over from a previously cooked joint. The form of service is quite a novelty to the newly-arrived American, and various opinions have been passed upon its advantages. Some are loud in its praise while others declare that the sight of the steaming joints destroys their appetite.

The dinner costs from two shillings, sixpence, to five shillings, and there is an extra charge of threepence or sixpence for attendance, if the customer is not stopping in the hotel, and sometimes when he is. This attendance business is a nuisance, and many a stranger has spoken his mind freely in denouncing it as a well-regulated swindle. The theory is that it pays for the service, but it does nothing of the kind, and every waiter who has done the least thing for you, as well as others who have not lifted a finger in your aid, expects to receive a fee before your departure. Some of the hotels have the impertinence to print on their bill-heads "the service is all included, and nothing more is expected," a falsehood as glaring as any that has ever been told in the history of the world. The stranger who takes them at their word, and leaves the house without distributing sixpences and shillings to the servants, would be looked upon as little less than a downright swindler, and be received with coldness and negligence if he had the temerity to venture there again.

The prices of bedrooms vary according to their location and character; they are rarely less than two shillings—with the inevitable attendance—and often as high as five shillings. The following may be taken as a fair average of charges in an English hotel of medium pretensions:

Bedroom,3 shillings.
Breakfast,3 shillings.
Dinner,4 shillings.
Supper,2 shillings 6 pence.
Attendance,1 shillings 6 pence.

If tea is added to this it will cost not less than one shilling, and generally more. The fees to the servants are not likely to be less than a shilling a day for each person of the party, and it requires careful management to bring them down to that figure. The fees should never be given till the moment of departure, for the reason already mentioned in our talk about steamships.

At all hotels in the United Kingdom and on the Continent be sure to have the price of everything distinctly understood at the time the room is taken. Perhaps it is from a consciousness of the dishonesty of the charge for attendance, the manager or other person who assigns your room never mentions that item, and a direct question is needed to bring it out. The following inquiries will cover the ordinary circumstances of arrival at a hotel:—