Hotel

a public place of entertainment for the traveler and transient. The word is French. The corresponding German name is Gasthof, or guest court. The good old-fashioned English word is inn. By a strange perversion, the keeper of an inn is called a landlord. Host is a more fitting word. An innkeeper ceases to be merely a private citizen. So far as his accommodations permit, he is required to lodge and feed respectable applicants and to protect them, as from pickpockets and burglars. In some states, his responsibility is limited to the keeping of a public safe in which guests may deposit their valuables. In most countries there are laws requiring the proprietor of a hotel to provide fire escapes.

The older countries of Europe, England in particular, have numerous delightful country inns where accommodations are still very reasonable, and the surroundings much more delightful than are afforded by the fashionable hotels thronged by tourists. Instead of giving inns the name of the proprietor or town, the rural signboards yet bear customarily such names as The Boar's Head, The Black Bear, The Three Jolly Mariners, The Tabard Inn, The Rainbow, The Angler, etc. This custom prevailed in America also until the close of the eighteenth century.

At the close of the Revolutionary War American inns are said to have been fairly comfortable. Food, including game, was abundant and of excellent quality. It was placed usually on a long table. Each guest helped himself. The sleeping accommodations consisted of one or more large rooms in which beds stood in rows. A dollar a day, that is to say, twenty-five cents for each meal and lodging was considered a reasonable price. The board bills of members of Congress were paid by the government. When the national capital was removed to the city of Washington there was complaint because board cost from three to seven dollars a week.

Prior to the Civil War the Tremont and the Parker House of Boston, the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and the Astor House of New York, the National and the Willard of Washington, the Continental of Philadelphia, the Ballard of Richmond, the St. Charles of New Orleans, the Planters and the Southern of St. Louis, and the Burnett of Cincinnati may be mentioned as some of the hotels of national reputation. The Fifth Avenue Hotel of New York City is credited with the first passenger elevator. The palatial hotels of the large cities are now too numerous to mention. The Auditorium Hotel of Chicago is one of the most noted. A large city hotel costs from $1,000,000 to $4,000,000. The finishing of some hotels are worth three-fourths of a million dollars. These hotels are small cities in themselves. There are rooms for reading, writing, and music, rooms for packages and baggage, boot rooms, barber shops, billiard rooms, book and music stands, ticket offices, rooms for a public typewriter, as well as desks for carrier and messenger service. The entire building is fitted with water-closets and baths, open grates or steam heat, elevators, and electric bells. Many hotels now provide each room with a telephone connected with the city service. The electric light plant, ice machine, and a cold storage plant are all included under the same roof. In some of the larger hostelries the number of improvements runs up into thousands. Such hotels charge from two to ten dollars a day for rooms. In 1905 there were, including summer and winter resorts, not far from 50,000 hotels in the United States employing about 3,000,000 people and representing a capital of over $6,000,000,000.

Two systems of charging are in vogue. According to the European plan the guest pays a fixed price for his room and orders food from a priced bill of fare. The American plan is that of charging a fixed price per day. Each meal or lodging is counted a quarter of a day. In country towns the usual commercial charge, American plan, for a room without a bath is two dollars per day. There are, of course, many cheaper hotels. The larger the city, the greater the tendency to increase prices.

Hotels managed on the European plan usually have a restaurant in the same building. A chef (shef) is the name given the head cook. To dine a la Carte (Kart) is to choose food from a priced list and pay for what one orders. Table d'Hote (pronounced Tabl' Dot) is a European name for the plan of paying a fixed price for a meal.