and other predatory tribes by which you are
harassed, nine times out of ten he will do so.
Attached servants, sir, belong to another period
of time;—and to speak frankly, from what
I remember as a boy of the tyranny exercised
by the old housekeeper, and the old butler,
and the old coachman, at home, and the life
they all led you, I should be half inclined to
say, that, on the whole, this institution of the
past must have been a bit of a bore. At all
events, it is all over with it.

Why, sir, this knowing nothing about the
servants, this freedom from all responsibility in
connexion with them, is one of the greatest of
the many advantages combined in the hotel
system. The servants at an hotel are civil to
you, and do what you tell them to do; that is
enough. You know nothing about them, and
they know nothing about you. Complaints as to
defects in the kitchen dinners, never reach you;
nor, supposing the housemaids to have followers,
does that circumstance affect your peace of
mind in the slightest degree. When you leave
your hotel, you give up your servants as you do
your London establishment; or, if you choose
to keep both on during your absence, you are
free from all anxiety as to what may take place
while you are away. You are not tormented
with visions of the footman getting drunk
and burning the house down, or of the cook's
lover proving to be a gentleman with a morbid
taste for the plate-baskets of others.

Reverting to that time when you were staying
with me at the hotel, I remember that you
were not pleased with many of the arrangements.
You complained, if I remember rightly,
that you had been much scared, when, as you
were passing the end of a dark corridor on the
third floor, you observed a figure slowly ascending
out of the floor: the head first, then the
shoulders, and so on. This figure resembled a
Corsican brother, silent, motionless, erect; its
ascent was accompanied by a slight clanking of
chains and a low groaning sound. It was
a porter coming up the lift, and those
unhallowed noises were made by the machinery
which worked it. An uncommonly useful thing
it is. When you arrive at the hotel, it whisks
your luggage up to your room before you can
get there yourself by the stairs. Let us hear
nothing against "lifts," whatever else you may
abuse. The only chance we have of improving
the appearance of our town depends on the
habitual construction of much higher buildings
in our streets than we have hitherto been
accustomed to. A lift is an inevitable part of the
structure of a large house, and we ought to
regard it with favour.

Now, sentiment set on one side—and you
may take my word for it, worthy sir, that it is
being set on one side as fast as the thing can
be done—what is a home? My dear parent, it
is a residence, more or less comfortable. It
should have certain characteristics, undoubtedly,
to make it habitable. It should be water-tight,
airy, light, comfortably furnished. There should
be easy-chairs, and sofas, and tables. There
should be a bed, and a wardrobe, and a washing-
stand, and a bath. The windows should open
wide when it is hot, and the fireplace should
draw well when it is cold. This, practically
speaking—and I must remind you that we
are becoming more practical every day—is a
home, and it is to be had at an hotel, at per
week.

As to the poetical view of the matter, "home,
sweet home," and all that sort of thing, I really
can't say. Perhaps an hotel is not exactly the
kind of place; but I must remind you that I
am a representative of a practical age, and
consequently cannot enter into a discussion of that
part of the subject. On the whole, probably
not a home; but I can't say.

That there are defects connected with the
great hotel system—and some of a kind more
difficult to get over than those which strike
you—I will not deny. Why, for instance,
should a bottle of cheap sherry cost six shillings,
or a fire eighteenpence a day? It seems to be
one of the highly prized superstitions of this
country, which may not be interfered with on
any pretence, that enormous prices must always
be asked for wine at hotels. And then, as to the
furnishing of hotel sitting-rooms (private), what
curious notions seem to prevail in this country!
The sitting-room (supposing only one to be
taken) is always a dining-room. An immense
dining-table, with additional leaves to make it
more immense, occupies the middle of the apartment;
and a great big sideboard, or a peculiarly
ugly piece of furniture, consisting of two or three
mahogany trays placed one over another, and
sustained on claw legs, is generally present also.
Why should not the sitting-room (as is invariably
the case abroad) be rather a salon or drawing-
room, than a dining-room? It is only wanted
for feeding purposes during an hour or two out of
the twenty-four, then why must it be furnished
throughout with dining-table, sideboard, and
six uncomfortable and unpicturesque chairs,
simply with a view to the proper serving of
meals whose consumption after all occupies such
a short space of time. Surely it is better to take
your bodily refreshment in a room got up in the
fashion of a drawing-room, than to be obliged to
sit all day in a bumptious and obtrusive dining-
room, with the furniture covered with maroon
leather gathered at regular intervals into dimples,
with a button in the centre of each. (It would be
curious, by-the-by, to know who was the originator
of this dimple-and-button style of decoration,
which has been so great an upholsterous
success. The name of so illustrious an artist
ought to be handed down to posterity.)

It can hardly be said that the hotel experiment
has been fairly tried hitherto, because, as
yet, it has only been tried on the high-price
system: a system from which it is impossible
to depart, so long as the original expenses
incurred in the building and fitting out of the
establishment are enormous. Too much money
is spent in the first instance. There is a perfectly
outrageous expenditure among the architects and
builders, who are allowed to indulge in all sorts