They are provided at the hotel as a matter of
course. The dinner, too, has a completeness
about it, which would only be effected in a
private establishment, by its being conducted on
a very expensive scale. Moreover, you need not
order your meal, unless you like, till ten minutes
before you want it, nor need you ever see the
component parts of it again. Unfortunate
persons on whom the duty of ordering dinners has
ever devolved, know what that after-breakfast
announcement, that "the butcher has called,"
means, and what perplexities and what nausea
it gives rise to in the mental and bodily systems
of the unhappy persons to whom this terrible
statement is made. In these hotels you live by
magic. You touch a spring—literally touch a
spring—one of the attendant genii appears—
"Some soup, a dish of cutlets, and a fowl at
half-past seven."—Lo! it is done.

Again, if you have some friends come to dine
with you, how easily it is managed. You
command the services of a first-rate cook. You
have a staff of people about you accustomed to
getting up dinners, and a staff of servants who
are in the habit of waiting together in unison,
and not struggling hand to hand for every dish,
as is the combative custom of professional
waiters in private life. Calmness is attainable,
peace, security.

It is curious to observe how readily a large
number of persons have already fallen into the
New Hotel system, as if they had been
familiar with it for years. If you go to one of
these enormous establishments, and enter the
large public sitting-room, you will find all sorts
of incongruous people thrown together in one
apartment, engaged in most incongruous
occupations, without interfering with one another.
In a corner by the window you will see a family
group, with children, chattering and amusing
themselves, very much as they would in their
own homes. There are ladies seated by the fire,
reading or working quite comfortably. In a
shady corner may be observed an old gentleman,
who has probably been travelling all night,
stretched on a sofa, fast asleep. Next to him, is
a commercial-looking gentleman at a writing-
desk, with heaps of official papers before him,
writing letters for very life. A lady near him,
is calmly engaged with a drawing in Indian ink.
Not far off, another lady is embroidering,
assiduous, like another Penelope; in the
immediate neighbourhood, a conference of a
commercial nature is being held by three men
of business, who have met here by agreement,
and are laying their heads together like
conspirators. Novel readers, newspaper readers,
loungers, and little lonely ladies, are sprinkled
among the more distinctive groups already
mentioned. There are talkers, too, of every
description—some who hold forth in a very loud
key, as if they wished everybody to be acquainted
with their affairs; others who mumble in a low
tone, though they have nothing of a more private
nature to discuss than the present state and
future prospects of the weather. Very various
kinds of people, in brief, are here, engaged in
very various kinds of occupations; but none of
them are in the least astonished at finding
themselves where they are.

As to the defects of the hotel system, these of
course are not wanting. You cannot expect, in
this world, to get a great many advantages without
some attendant disadvantages to counter-
balance them.

The annoyance to which those who live in an
hotel are subject, seem mainly to be such as
affect the imagination and the sentiments. It
is difficult, for instance, to feel at home in an
hotel. The rooms you occupy are no doubt
impregnably your own while you pay for them; but
still you hardly feel them to be your own. The
furniture is not yours. You did not choose it.
Very likely it is not in accordance with your
taste. It served others before you came, and
it will serve others when you are gone. It may
be urged, on the contrary, that most people
are in the habit of living in hired houses, and
still do regard such houses as their homes.
True, and logical no doubt; but what is logic
in a matter of feeling?

I remember, dear sir, that once when I was
passing some time at one of these large hotels,
and you came to stay with me, you had a host
of objections to make. It appeared to you,
that I had ceased to be a personage, and
had become a number—No. 26, or whatever it
might be. You said that when you asked for
me by name, there was a whispering of waiters
and porters, and then somebody inquired whether
"26 was at home." Well, I grant this; I am
a number, and nothing else, when I live at a great
hotel; but, after all, what does it matter? The
system may become general some day. We are
getting into a mess with our surnames, as fast
as we can, and a man needs to have two or
three, if he wants to be distinguished. Perhaps
numbers may come in, and we may read in the
Court Circular, "The Prince of Wales visited
that illustrious sculptor, No. 184, and
inspected the group on which this renowned
gentleman has been so long engaged;" or, in a
provincial paper, "The great 2000—perhaps one
of the most distinguished men of this or any
other age—is coming down to pass the dull
season among us. Let an ovation be prepared,"
&c.

You likewise objected that you wouldn't like to
live with a pack of servants about you who were
not your own, and who took no interest in your
welfare, and had not your comfort and well-
being at heart. My very dear sir, in that
remark I am afraid you manifested a depth of
credulity, and a want of perception of the way
in which the world wags, which might almost
afflict me to tears. Do you think that your own
servants care for you? Dismiss the idea, sir,
immediately and for ever. Domestic service
has become a trade, and, like other trades, is
carried on with a prodigious amount of cheatery
and adulteration. As to attachment; your
servant is attached to the money which he
makes by you; and if he can add to his stipend
by leaguing himself with the tradespeople