GOING ON SHORE.--HOTELS.
The English and French custom-houses are not as difficult to pass as
the American, and the examination is generally quite brief. The
traveler should get all his pieces together, so as to facilitate the
labors of the officials, and if he has anything liable to duty it is
best to declare it before any questions are asked. Spirits and tobacco
are the things mainly looked for, and, if any are found that have not
been declared, they are liable to confiscation. Where the passenger
has only a small quantity of luggage it is generally passed without
being opened; and if there are several trunks they investigate every
second or third one, making the selection themselves. It is well not
to have any of your trunks nicely corded and made up for a long
journey, as the officers have learned from long experience that such
packages are more liable to contain contraband goods than any other,
and consequently they are the ones generally chosen to be opened.
Landing in America has more formality than landing in England or
France. The officers come on board at quarantine, and while the ship
is making her way up the harbor the declarations of the passengers are
taken. The number and character of each one's packages is marked on a
blank, to which is appended an oath to the effect that the passenger
has told the truth. He receives a card bearing the number of his
declaration, and when he reaches the dock and has his baggage ready
for examination, he presents his ticket to the officer in charge; the
latter assigns his subordinate who is to conduct the examination, and
hands him the declaration that the passenger has made. If the number
and character of the packages is found to be correct, and no dutiable
goods are discovered that have not been declared, the inspection is
over in a few minutes, the officer puts a cabalistic mark on each
article, and the passenger may then breathe freely. Sometimes the
officials conduct the search with a great deal of rigor, and at others
they are not at all particular. There appears to be no regular system
about the business, and the officials are lax or vigilant, according
to the temper of their chief. A change in the office of collector of
customs at New York is followed by a great deal of energy, but nobody
can tell how long it will last. On some occasions the inspectors have
actually turned the contents of trunks on the dock in order to
facilitate their examinations, and a great deal of needless rudeness
has been displayed by them.
For the information of travelers, the following caution is
published:--
"All articles such as wearing apparel, not having been worn, must be
declared at the custom-house. Travelers not conforming to this
regulation will incur not only the confiscation of the articles not
declared, but also the payment of a fine. Silks, laces, and other
foreign goods, packed with articles of apparel, or otherwise
concealed, are, as well as the articles in which they may be placed,
liable to seizure; and travelers are warned that the seizure is
strictly enforced, unless the examining officer is informed of the
articles being in the package, and the goods duly declared before it
is opened."
Clothing in actual use is admitted free of duty, and those who return
home with a supply of new garments should be particular to wear each
article at least once, in order to be within the regulations. Ladies
are informed that a dress that has simply been "tried on" is
considered liable to duty, but if it has actually been worn once or
twice, it is admissible. Gloves are exempt from this condition, but
the traveler should not expect to import a large quantity. The strict
allowance is one dozen pairs, but in most cases three or four dozen
may be carried without question. The regulations say that each
passenger may bring, free of duty, a fair amount of clothing,
according to his condition in life, a statement that has given rise
to a great deal of dispute. Half a dozen costly silk dresses of the
latest fashion would be manifestly out of place in the baggage of
Bridget Maloney in the steerage, and fresh from the bogs of Ireland,
while they would be regarded as a moderate allowance for Miss Flora
M'Flimsey, whose father is a millionaire.
In the continental ports, generally, there is often considerable delay
in examining baggage, and the following regulations have been made to
facilitate the movements of travelers:--
"Passengers, on landing, are not permitted to take more than one small
bag with them on shore. The custom-house porters, who are responsible
for its safety, convey it direct from the vessel to the custom-house,
where the owner, to save personal attendance, had better send the
hotel commissionaire afterwards with the keys. The landlord of the inn
is responsible for his honesty."
Leaving the custom-house behind you, the way is clear to seek a hotel.
Generally there are plenty of runners at the landing-place, and if you
have chosen the establishment where you are to stop, you have only to
name it, and the runner for that house will step forward to take
charge of yourself and your belongings. Sometimes the baggage is taken
on the cab or carriage which carries you, and at others it is
intrusted to licensed porters, who are responsible for its safe
delivery, and can be trusted without much hesitation. As far as
possible, it is best to keep your baggage always with you when
traveling, but there are many instances where it is not convenient to
do so. Before you leave the custom-house there are some fees to be
paid to the porters who have handled your luggage, but none to the
officers who examined it. You will find, too, that the man who puts it
on the carriage desires to be remembered, and you discover very early
in your travels that you are in the land of fees. If you are in charge
of the hotel runner you can let him settle these matters, or, if you
prefer to attend to them yourself, you can do so, but you run the risk
of giving too much. The runner is not always to be trusted, as he
sometimes has a secret arrangement with the porters to compel
strangers to bleed freely with the understanding that he is to receive
the surplus. For putting the ordinary baggage of a traveler through
the custom-house and on the top of a cab, a shilling is sufficient,
and if it is handled by two persons they should be satisfied with a
sixpence each.
It is best to ask the hotel proprietor to settle for your cab rather
than attempt it yourself. It is next to impossible to ascertain from a
driver how much he is legally entitled to; he either lies about it, or
will not give a direct answer. He will "leave it to the gentleman,"
and the more you persist in knowing, the more he will "leave it to
your honor." And finally when you make a venture, and through fear of
giving too little give too much, the chances are, five to one, he will
declare himself under-paid, and demand more. He promises beforehand to
leave it to you, but rarely does, and therein is the aggravating part
of the business. The only way to do under such circumstances is to
walk off and leave him to shower imprecations on you; if you prefer
peace and quietness you will pay what he demands. This payment will be
followed by a request for an additional something for drinking your
health, and possibly by a hint that the horse is hungry, and a trifle
to buy oats would be appreciated by the beast. Don't expect a driver
in the United Kingdom to change a coin for you; his pockets may be
bulging with shillings and sixpences, but he declares with the most
solemn face that he has no change, and possibly insists that you are
the first patron he has had for two days.
Our copy-books at school generally inform us that the horse is a noble
animal. No one will be likely to dispute the statement, as we all have
a respect for the horse, and many of us are familiar with incidents
that show his excellent character. But, admitting his nobility, it is
a little singular that he should be associated with so much that is
the reverse of noble, or rather that the great majority of those who
associate with him are inclined to rascality. The whole race of
hackmen and cabmen, from one end of the world to the other, are
distinguished for their swindling tendencies; horse-trading and
horse-jockeying are synonyms of cheating, and the race-track is the
resort of scoundrels of all grades and kinds. If the traveler is not
prepared to accept this proposition before landing in the old world,
he will have excellent opportunities to verify it before he has been a
month on the eastern side of the Atlantic.
In the English hotels the traveler will find many things to remind him
that he is not in the United States. Instead of an office with a
marble counter, a heavy register, and a clerk gorgeous as to hair and
sparkling as to breast-pin, he finds a little window opening into a
room only a few feet square, and behind the window a woman. She takes
his application for lodging, and as he peers into the nook where she
sits he wonders how the New York hotel clerk would get along in such
narrow limits. Perhaps he may see a door opening beyond the office
into an equally small apartment, where the book-keeper is stationed,
and, in many instances, he finds that the accounts are kept by one of
the gentler sex.
In many hotels not a man is visible about the office, with the
possible exception of the porter, and the entire management is in
feminine hands. The proprietor is rarely seen, and even the manager,
where there is a masculine one, is a personage who is reached with
more or less difficulty. At a famous hotel in Ireland, which bears the
name of its proprietor, the story goes that a gentleman asked one day
if that individual was in.
"He's in his private office, sir," was the reply.
"Say that I wish to see him a moment," said the gentleman, who was a
London merchant of considerable prominence, and well known as a
frequent patron of the hotel.
The clerk disappeared, and shortly returned with the following
message:--
"Mr. ---- is engaged at present over some papers, and will send
his secretary out in a few minutes to see what you want."
The American will miss the wide corridors of the hotels of his native
land, and he finds the space usually given up to the public in the
United States is here reserved for the strict use of the house. There
are no broad reading-rooms and parlors, with a plentiful supply of
papers from all parts of the country, as in the great hostelries at
home; the bar is a dingy nook, scarcely larger than the office, and
the most conspicuous ornaments in it are the handles of the
beer-pumps. The bartender is absent, and in his place the bar-maid
presides; those who are bibulously inclined will find comparatively
little to tempt them, as the array of "mixed drinks," so common in
an American bar, is practically unknown in England. A few drinking
establishments in London have sought to attract the patronage of
strangers from the United States by advertising "American drinks,"
but those who have tried them say that the British concoctions are
base counterfeits of the great originals.
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:--
"What is the price of a bedroom?"
"What is the charge for attendance?"
"How much for dinner?"
"How much for breakfast?"
"What time must a room be given up?"
The last interrogatory is necessary in consequence of the varying
rules of the hotels. Most of them have their day, like the nautical
one, begin at noon, and a person who remains till one or two P.M.
must pay for an extra day of room and attendance. Some hotels begin
their day at 11 A.M., and some as early as 10; it is a noticeable
fact that in several of these latter instances important trains leave
a couple of hours after the termination of the diurnal reckoning. The
traveler who holds his room till it is time to go to the train finds
to his astonishment that the last hour of his occupation has cost him
the same as an entire day. But the hotel keepers have a living to
make, and must keep an eye to the main chance.
Guides for the city or neighborhood can be had at all hotels, and are
preferable to those picked up the street. Carriages and cabs can also
be ordered at the hotel, but if the traveler can trust himself to make
a bargain it is better to secure them outside, since the house not
infrequently adds a commission for its services. Besides it is well to
learn as much as possible of the people you are among, and there are
no more sharply-defined characters in the world than the professional
drivers of Irish, Scotch, or English cities.