HOTEL AND BOARDING-HOUSE LIFE
THERE is no better place than a hotel in which to study the manners, or
lack of manners, of the world at large. It is here that selfishness is
rampant, and unselfishness hides its diminished head.
Before we discuss the ethics of hotel life it will be well to give a
few general directions as to what one does from the time one enters the
door of the building which will, for a long or short time, be his place
of abode. He proceeds at once to the office, makes known his desires
with regard to a room or rooms, and writes his name in the register
handed to him by the clerk. He is then assigned to his room, and a page
directs him thither, carrying hand luggage. To this page he hands his
trunk-check, and the trunk is soon brought to his room.
Upon the inside of the door in every hotel room is tacked a set of
rules of the house, and these are in themselves sufficient to instruct
our uninitiated traveler in most of what is expected of him. He here
learns that the hotel is not responsible for valuables left on the
bureau or table of the room, that the guest is requested to keep his
trunk locked, and to lock his door upon going out, and to leave his
key at the office; that valuable papers and jewelry can be left in
the safe of the hotel; at what hours meals are served and so on. All
these directions the considerate person will observe. None of them is
unreasonable. There are many things for which no printed rules are
given which are none the less essential to the correctness of demeanor
on the part of a guest.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AT THE HOTEL TABLE]
Loud talking is one of the things to be avoided. One must remember that
in a hotel more than in any other place is the warning of the Frenchman
likely to be proved true,—“The walls themselves, my lord, have ears!”
Each room has another room next to it, and the partitions are thin. The
transoms all open upon a general hall in which can be heard any loud
remark spoken in any one of the rooms. If one does not discuss affairs
one wishes kept secret, one must bear in mind the fact that other
people may be annoyed while resting, reading or talking, by fragmentary
bits of conversation wafted to them. At the hotel table one must also
bear this in mind. Loud talking in a public place stamps the speaker as
a vulgarian, or a person who has seldom been outside of his own home,
and has never learned to modulate his voice.
* * * * *
On entering a hotel dining-room, the traveler pauses until the head
waiter, or one of his assistants, indicates a table at which he may
sit. If this table be too near the radiator or window, or otherwise
undesirable, the guest may courteously ask if he can not be placed in
another locality. When a man and a woman are together the man enters
the room first, and leads the way to the table, on the first occasion
of their taking a meal at the hotel. After that, if they occupy the
same table each day, the woman enters the room first and proceeds to
her seat, followed by the man. He, or the waiter, draws back her chair
for her and seats her. The man, of course, remains standing until she
is seated.
[Sidenote: GIVING ONE’S ORDER]
The menu card is handed to the man, with a pad or slip of paper and
pencil. Upon this, after discussion with the woman, he writes his
order. As a rule he orders the entire meal, except the dessert, at
once. The sweets can be decided on later.
* * * * *
I wish I could impress on the minds of persons in a hotel that it is
wretched form to criticize audibly the viands set before them. The
person sitting near you is not edified to hear you remark that the
soup is wretched, the beef too rare, the coffee lukewarm. If you have
any fault to find, do so to the waiter and in such a tone that the
other guests can not hear it.
[Sidenote: AVOID FAULTFINDING]
Above all, do not scold the waiter for that for which he is not to
blame. He does not purchase the meat, nor does he fry the oysters.
Show him that you appreciate this fact, and ask him politely if he can
not get you a better cut, or oysters that are not burned. Some persons
seem to think that it elevates them in the opinion of observers if
they complain of what is set before them. They fancy, apparently, that
others will be impressed with the idea that they are accustomed to so
much better fare at home than that they now have that it is a trial
for them to descend to the plane on which others are eating. The fact
of the case is that the person who is accustomed to dainty fare, and
to even-threaded living, is too well-bred to call the attention of
strangers to the fact.
* * * * *
While we are on this subject it would be well to remind the thoughtless
person that when he dines with a friend at that friend’s hotel, on his
invitation, he is a guest. It is therefore rude for him to comment
unfavorably on the dishes on the table. When, under such circumstances,
a guest says to his host _pro tem._, “My dear fellow, they do not give
you good veal here!” or, “Are you not tired of the mean butter you
eat at this hotel?” he is criticizing in an offensive manner the best
that his host can offer him, since he has no house of his own in which
to entertain. The guest should act as if it were his friend’s private
table, and forbear to criticize fare or service.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: HOTEL TIPPING]
One of the often unconsidered items of expense in hotel life is the
“tips” that one must give. In no other place is one’s hand so often in
one’s pocket. A porter carries a bag, and he must be tipped; another
carries up a trunk, he must be tipped; one rings for iced water, and
the boy bringing it expects his ten cents; one wants hot water every
morning, and in notifying the chambermaid of this fact, must slip a bit
of silver into her palm. The waiter at one’s table must be frequently
remembered, and the head waiter will give one better attention if he
finds something in his hand after he shows the new arrival to a table,
and, of course, on leaving, one will also give a fee. So it goes! When,
however, one is staying by the week at a hotel, “tips” need be given
only once a week,—unless some unusual favor is asked. We may rebel
against the custom, and with reason. But as not one of us can alter
the state of affairs, it is well to accept it with a good grace, or
reconcile one’s self to indifferent service.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CHILDREN IN A HOTEL]
The matter of children in a hotel is one on which so much has been
said and written that there is little left to say. At the first glance
one is tempted to resent the fact that many hotel proprietors object
to having children accompany their parents to the public table, and
that some even demur at their presence in the house. Child-lovers have
said bitterly that the celestial “many mansions” seem to be the only
abodes in which the little ones are welcome,—and all these opinions
have a great deal of truth on their side. But it is not until one has
undergone the annoyance of ill-governed children in a house where there
are no restrictions enforced on them that one sees the other side of
the shield. One large boarding-house at a fashionable summer resort is
popular to mothers of large families because the proprietor does not
object to children. A guest there last season decided that if that were
the case said proprietor had no nerves. She soon learned that childless
guests declined to stay at the place. Children raced up and down the
long corridors, screaming as they went; they played noisily outside of
bedroom doors; they ate like little pigs at the hotel tables. In short,
they made the house a purgatory for all except other children and
their mothers.
[Sidenote: TWO TYPES OF MOTHERS]
There are two types of mothers in this land of ours that are greatly at
fault. One is the mother who hands the management of the children over
to a nurse or several nurses, and she is, of course, the rich woman
whose children see her seldom, and that not often enough to bother her.
The other type is the woman who has nerves toward all things except her
own children’s noise. She is such a doting parent that she is, to all
appearances, blind and deaf to the fact that her own offspring drive to
the verge of insanity other “grown-ups” with whom they come in contact.
Verily the American youngster is having everything his own way in
private and public nowadays! Dwellers in hotels are to be pardoned if
they beg that he be kept in private until his parents learn to govern
him, and by thus doing, show mercy to other people.
While the rules that govern propriety should be adhered to everywhere,
there is no other place where they should be more strictly observed
than at the summer hotel, or the boarding-house of a fashionable
watering-place. It may not be an exaggeration to state that there are
few decent places where they are more openly disregarded. With the
trammels of city life one seems to lay down an appreciation of the
fitness of things generally. The free intercourse, the rapidly-made
acquaintances, the mingling of many sorts of peoples in the huge
caravansary—tend to make us cast aside conventionalities. Husbands,
running down from the city for a Sunday with their wives, find them
absorbed and happy in the gay life about them, and quite sufficient
unto themselves when the husbands return to counting-room and office
on Monday morning. There is always a class of men who, having nothing
else to do, are habitués of the summer hotel, where they flirt with
the wives of other men and make themselves generally useful and talked
about.
[Sidenote: AVOIDING GOSSIP]
There may be no harm in all this sort of thing, but it is well for the
discreet maiden and matron to avoid giving any cause for the enemy to
blaspheme,—in other words, for the gossip to make herself busy and
dangerous. To this end, late hours in shaded corners of verandas,
moonlight sails and walks, and beach-promenades well on toward
midnight, are to be shunned. While these may be innocent per se, they
give rise to scandal. The young girl may always have a chaperon to whom
to refer as to the proprieties, but it is not the young girl who is
most talked about. The married woman whose husband lets her have her
own way is a law unto herself, and she must be careful not to make
that law too lax. It takes very little to set silly tongues wagging; it
takes months and years to check the commotion they have made.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: PROMISCUOUS FRIENDSHIPS]
Promiscuous intimacies at summer resorts are a great mistake. Unless a
woman knows all about a fellow guest, she should not get into the habit
of running into her room, or of talking with her as with a lifelong
friend. She may be pleasant toward all, and intimate with none.
It is a well-known fact that there is no other hotbed of gossip equal
to a hotel or a boarding-house. Women, released from the cares and
anxieties of housekeeping and home-making, turn their time and thoughts
to fancy work and scandal. Each arrival runs the gantlet of criticism
and comment, and afterward becomes the subject of “confidential”
conversations upon veranda and in parlors. Here, as everywhere else,
work that will occupy the mind is a sovereign cure for this habit. One
can usually sit in one’s own room, but if one does not, there is always
a book to be read in parlors or on the veranda, which will show the
would-be gossip or retailer of scandal that one is too much occupied to
engage in conversation.
[Sidenote: TWO GOOD RULES]
Certainly in a hotel no one lives unto himself, but each must consider
the comfort of his neighbor. Such a semi-public life is at the best
a poor substitute for a home existence. Two rules to be observed
will make other rules of hotel or boarding-house etiquette sink into
insignificance compared with their importance.
First: Do nothing that will make others uncomfortable.
Second: Pay attention to your own business, and pay no attention to
that of other people.