I presume that the origin of hotels and inns has been much the same in all countries. At first the solitary traveller is received, welcomed, and hospitably entertained; but, as the wayfarers multiply, what was at first a pleasure becomes a tax. For instance, let us take Western Virginia, through which the first irruption to the Far West may be said to have taken place. At first every one was received and accommodated by those who had settled there; but as this gradually became inconvenient, not only from interfering with their domestic privacy, but from their not being prepared to meet the wants of the travellers, the inhabitants of any small settlement met together and agreed upon one of them keeping the house of reception; this was not done with a view of profit, the travellers being only charged the actual value of the articles consumed. Such is still the case in many places in the Far West; a friend of mine told me that he put up at the house of a widow woman; he supped, slept, had his breakfast, and his horse was also well supplied. When he was leaving, he inquired what he had to pay, the woman replied—, “Well, if I don’t charge something, I suppose you will be affronted. Give me a shilling;” a sum not sufficient to pay for the horse’s corn.
The American innkeeper, therefore, is still looked upon in the light of your host; he and his wife sit at the head of the table-d’hôte at meal times; when you arrive he greets you with a welcome, shaking your hand; if you arrive in company with those who know him, you are introduced to him; he is considered on a level with you; you meet him in the most respectable companies, and it is but justice to say that, in most instances, they are a very respectable portion of society. Of course, his authority, like that of the captains of the steam-boats, is undisputed; indeed the captains of these boats may be partly considered as classed under the same head.
This is one of the most pleasing features in American society, and I think it is likely to last longer than most others in this land of change, because it is upheld by public opinion, which is so despotic. The mania for travelling, among the people of the United States, renders it most important that every thing connected with locomotion should be well arranged; society demands it, public opinion enforces it, and therefore, with few exceptions, it is so. The respect shown to the master of a hotel induces people of the highest character to embark in the profession; the continual streams of travellers which pours through the country, gives sufficient support by moderate profits, to enable the innkeeper to abstain from excessive charges; the price of every thing is known by all, and no more is charged to the President of the United States than to other people. Every one knows his expenses; there is no surcharge, and fees to waiters are voluntary, and never asked for. At first I used to examine the bill when presented, but latterly I looked only at the sum total at the bottom and paid it at once, reserving the examination of it for my leisure, and never in one instance found that I had been imposed upon. This is very remarkable, and shows the force of public opinion in America; for it can produce, when required, a very scarce article all over the world, and still more scarce in the profession referred to, Honesty. Of course there will be exceptions, but they are very few, and chiefly confined to the cities. I shall refer to them afterwards, and at the same time to some peculiarities, which I must not omit to point out, as they affect society. Let me first describe the interior arrangements of a first-rate American hotel.
The building is very spacious, as may be imagined when I state that in the busy times, from one hundred and fifty to two, or even three hundred, generally sit down at the dinner-table. The upper stories contain an immense number of bed-rooms, with their doors opening upon long corridors, with little variety in their furniture and arrangement, except that some are provided with large beds for married people, and others with single beds. The basement of the building contains the dinner-room, of ample dimensions, to receive the guests, who at the sound of a gong rush in, and in a few minutes have finished their repast. The same room is appropriated to breakfast and supper. In most hotels there is but one dining-room, to which ladies and gentlemen both repair, but in the more considerable, there is a smaller dining-room for the ladies and their connexions who escort them. The ladies have also a large parlour to retire to; the gentlemen have the reading-room, containing some of the principal newspapers, and the Bar, of which hereafter. If a gentleman wants to give a dinner to a private party in any of these large hotels, he can do it; or if a certain number of families join together, they may also eat in a separate room (this is frequently done at Washington;) but if a traveller wishes to seclude himself à l’Anglaise, and dine in his own room, he must make up his mind to fare very badly, and, moreover, if he is a foreigner, he will give great offence, and be pointed out as an aristocrat—almost as serious a charge with the majority in the United States, as it was in France during the Revolution.
The largest hotels in the United States are Astor House, New York; Tremont House, Boston; Mansion house, Philadelphia; the hotels at West Point, and at Buffalo; but it is unnecessary to enumerate them all. The two pleasantest, are the one at West Point, which was kept by Mr Cozens, and that belonging to Mr Head, the Mansion House at Philadelphia; but the latter can scarcely be considered as a hotel, not only because Mr Head is, and always was, a gentleman with whom it is a pleasure to associate, but because he is very particular in whom he receives, and only gentlemen are admitted. It is more like a private club than any thing else I can compare it to, and I passed some of my pleasantest time in America at his establishment, and never bid farewell to him or his sons, or the company, without regret. There are some hotels in New York upon the English system: the Globe is the best, and I always frequented it; and there is an excellent French restaurateur’s (Delmonico’s).
Of course, where the population and traffic are great, and the travellers who pass through numerous, the hotels are large and good; where, on the contrary, the road is less and less frequented, so do they decrease in importance, size, and respectability, until you arrive at the farm-house entertainment of Virginia and Kentucky; the grocery, or mere grog-shop, or the log-house of the Far West. The way-side inns are remarkable for their uniformity; the furniture of the bar-room is invariably the same: a wooden clock, map of the United States, map of the State, the Declaration of Independence, a looking-glass, with a hair-brush and comb hanging to it by strings, pro bono publico; sometimes with the extra embellishment of one or two miserable pictures, such as General Jackson scrambling upon a horse, with fire or steam coming out of his nostrils, going to the battle of New Orleans, etcetera, etcetera.
He who is of the silver-fork school, will not find much comfort out of the American cities and large towns. There are no neat, quiet little inns, as in England. It is all the “rough and tumble” system, and when you stop at humble inns you must expect to eat peas with a two-pronged fork, and to sit down to meals with people whose exterior is any thing but agreeable, to attend upon yourself, and to sleep in a room in which there are three or four other beds; (I have slept in one with nearly twenty,) most of them carrying double, even if you do not have a companion in your own.
A New York friend of mine travelling in an Extra with his family, told me that at a western inn he had particularly requested that he might not have a bed-fellow, and was promised that he should not. On his retiring, he found his bed already occupied, and he went down to the landlady, and expostulated. “Well,” replied she, “it’s only your own driver; I thought you wouldn’t mind him.”
Another gentleman told me, that having arrived at a place called Snake’s Hollow, on the Mississippi, the bed was made on the kitchen-floor, and the whole family and travellers, amounting in all to seventeen, of all ages and both sexes, turned into the same bed altogether. Of course this must be expected in a new country, and is a source of amusement, rather than of annoyance.
I must now enter into a very important question, which is that of eating and drinking. Mr Cooper, in his remarks upon his own countrymen, says, very ill-naturedly—“The Americans are the grossest feeders of any civilised nation known. As a nation, their food is heavy, coarse, and indigestible, while it is taken in the least artificial forms that cookery will allow. The predominance of grease in the American kitchen, coupled with the habits of hearty eating, and of constant expectoration, are the causes of the diseases of the stomach which are so