In the last ten years I have seen a good deal of English inns in many
parts of the country, and it astonishes me to find how bad they are. Only
once or twice have I chanced upon an inn (or, if you like, hotel) where I
enjoyed any sort of comfort. More often than not, even the beds are
unsatisfactory--either pretentiously huge and choked with drapery, or
hard and thinly accoutred. Furnishing is uniformly hideous, and there is
either no attempt at ornament (the safest thing) or a villainous taste
thrusts itself upon one at every turn. The meals, in general, are coarse
and poor in quality, and served with gross slovenliness.
I have often heard it said that the touring cyclist has caused the
revival of wayside inns. It may be so, but the touring cyclist seems to
be very easily satisfied. Unless we are greatly deceived by the old
writers, an English inn used to be a delightful resort, abounding in
comfort, and supplied with the best of food; a place, too, where one was
sure of welcome at once hearty and courteous. The inns of to-day, in
country towns and villages, are not in that good old sense inns at all;
they are merely public-houses. The landlord's chief interest is the sale
of liquor. Under his roof you may, if you choose, eat and sleep, but
what you are expected to do is to drink. Yet, even for drinking, there
is no decent accommodation. You will find what is called a bar-parlour,
a stuffy and dirty room, with crazy chairs, where only the sodden dram-
gulper could imagine himself at ease. Should you wish to write a letter,
only the worst pen and the vilest ink is forthcoming; this, even in the
"commercial room" of many an inn which seems to depend upon the custom of
travelling tradesmen. Indeed, this whole business of innkeeping is
incredibly mismanaged. Most of all does the common ineptitude or
brutality enrage one when it has possession of an old and picturesque
house, such as reminds you of the best tradition, a house which might be
made as comfortable as house can be, a place of rest and mirth.
At a public-house you expect public-house manners, and nothing better
will meet you at most of the so-called inns or hotels. It surprises me
to think in how few instances I have found even the pretence of civility.
As a rule, the landlord and landlady are either contemptuously superior
or boorishly familiar; the waiters and chambermaids do their work with an
indifference which only softens to a condescending interest at the moment
of your departure, when, if the tip be thought insufficient, a sneer or a
muttered insult speeds you on your way. One inn I remember, where,
having to go in and out two or three times in a morning, I always found
the front door blocked by the portly forms of two women, the landlady and
the barmaid, who stood there chatting and surveying the street. Coming
from within the house, I had to call out a request for passage; it was
granted with all deliberation, and with not a syllable of apology. This
was the best "hotel" in a Sussex market town.
And the food. Here, beyond doubt, there is grave degeneracy. It is
impossible to suppose that the old travellers by coach were contented
with entertainment such as one gets nowadays at the table of a country
hotel. The cooking is wont to be wretched; the quality of the meat and
vegetables worse than mediocre. What! Shall one ask in vain at an
English inn for an honest chop or steak? Again and again has my appetite
been frustrated with an offer of mere sinew and scrag. At a hotel where
the charge for lunch was five shillings, I have been sickened with pulpy
potatoes and stringy cabbage. The very joint--ribs or sirloin, leg or
shoulder--is commonly a poor, underfed, sapless thing, scorched in an
oven; and as for the round of beef, it has as good as
disappeared--probably because it asks too much skill in the salting. Then
again one's breakfast bacon; what intolerable stuff, smelling of
saltpetre, has been set before me when I paid the price of the best
smoked Wiltshire! It would be mere indulgence of the spirit of grumbling
to talk about poisonous tea and washy coffee; every one knows that these
drinks cannot be had at public tables; but what if there be real reason
for discontent with one's pint of ale? Often, still, that draught from
the local brewery is sound and invigorating, but there are grievous
exceptions, and no doubt the tendency is here, as in other things--a
falling off, a carelessness, if not a calculating dishonesty. I foresee
the day when Englishmen will have forgotten how to brew beer; when one's
only safety will lie in the draught imported from Munich.