A FEW REMARKS / V A FEW REMARKS SIMEON FORD A FEW REMARKS BY SIMEON FORD Fourth and Revised Edition NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY I909 ■ Copyright. 19°?. by P. F. Collier & Son Copyright, 1003, by John Wanamaker Copyright, 190J, by The Ridgeway-Thayer Compiny Copyright, iooj, by Doubleday, Page & Company Published, June. 190} CO >- DC -: in AN EXPLANATION My best speeches never have been reported, and so have been lost to posterity. A glance through this volume will convince any one of the truth of this statement. A man can achieve notoriety by after-dinner speaking more easily and with less expen- diture of gray matter than in any other way. "Among the blind the one-eyed man is king," and the run of postprandial offenders § is so erudite and dreary that the rare one who illumines his remarks with even a hint of O humour is hailed as a genius. * And yet I would not advise the young man J seeking glory to tackle after-dinner speaking. Hardening of the liver and softening of the brain are pretty sure to ensue, and he will find that the plaudits of the multitude will not go very far toward paying his board-bill. Simeon Ford. V -I A TALK TO THE BOOK-SELLERS A TALK TO THE BOOK-SELLERS PREFATORY REMARKS TO THE FOURTH EDITION * WAS brought here, not for the purpose of entertaining or instructing you, but to be exhibited as a horrible example of the debilitating and blighting effect of indulging in a literary jag. Perhaps you are not aware of the fact that I am an author? I realise that I do not look the part, but, nevertheless, I am ; although it's no fault of mine. Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have great- ness shoved right at 'em. I trot in the latter class. * This address, made before the New York Book - sellers' League, is reprinted here to explain matters: no attempt has been made in the following pages to tell by notes or otherwise how and upon what occasions the speeches were made; the dinners have gone by, but the character of the trade, the hero whose fame is celebrated, and the occasion, remain as they were before and give an excuse for printing new editions of this bouk. ix A Few Remarks Naturally I am a shy, retiring, and illit- erate cuss, and pursue the nefarious though necessary avocation of "keeping tavern." But, in an evil hour, a mis- guided publishing house discovered that I had a genius for letters which I had art- fully concealed for years, and now I am doomed to go thundering down the ages, linked with Charley Dickens, Willie Shake- speare, George Ade, and other literary fellers. That is to say, I will, providing you gentlemen take hold and push me along. As a budding author I am looking for aid and succour, and if you will supply the aid I will supply the sucker. It isn't going to be an easy job selling my book, you can bet on that. Nobody is going to buy it unless Force on them is brought to bear. In the first place, my portrait will appear in the front of the x A Talk to the Book-sellers book. That will have a tendency to kill the sale right at the go in. Still, look at Dante and George Eliot and Bill Nye ! None of them would have been eligible for a place in the Florodora Sextette, and yet their books sell all right. When us authors get all "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," it has a tendency to dim the lustre of the eye, get on to the curves, and remove the dimples. I wish you could have seen me when I just ran a hotel and didn't have to use my brain. I was a dream, previous to be- coming a nightmare. I don't want you to get the idea that I am here to further my own interests, or to throw bouquets at myself, or to execute a sonata upon my own horn. It really makes very little difference to me whether this book of mine sells or not, because I can make an honest living, as a hotel- xi A Few Remarks keeper, by robbing the public. The fewer sold the better for my self-respect and the public weal. But I feel sorry for my publishers. Of course, they are not really entitled to any sympathy, because they brought this thing on themselves, but now they are in it I can't help feeling that we ought to see them through. They need thee, oh, they need thee I every hour they knead thee. My publishers are the instigators and perpetrators of this outrage upon the reading public. They are a young and rising firm, and if you don't believe it just try to get a rise out of them. They cer- tainly know how to worry an author into undue prominence. Before I fell into their clutches I was an obscure and self-respect- ing man, peacefully pursuing the even tenor of my way, unwept, unnumbered, and unsung, with no reputation outside • • Xll A Talk to the Book-sellers of my immediate family, and not much of a one there. Now, thanks to them and to their anxiety to get rid of my book, my life has become one long nightmare. My bilious and dejected countenance stares reproachfully at me from every Sunday newspaper and patent insider. My hith- erto untarnished name flames on every fence, bill-board, and ash-barrel. I am in receipt of letters from widows in reduced circumstances, asking me to contribute toward the expenses of their daughters' musical education. I am invited to lay corner-stones, sign autographs, buy tickets to church sociables and coloured orphans, clam-bakes, and receive offers of marriage from women who are willing to take long chances. Before I became an author I looked upon Seymour Eaton, Andrew Carnegie, and R. H. Macy as our three greatest xiii A Few Remarks philanthropists. It was this great trinity which was furthering, ably and cheaply, the love of letters and the pursuit of knowl- edge. But I have changed my tune. I now look upon them as a combination in restraint of trade, the discouragers of intellect, and the disseminators of bacilli. I read that a man has just got $1,000,- ooo for a patent bottle which cannot be refilled and used a second time. We must get hold of that man and offer him his own price to invent a book which can- not be read by more than one person. I think my book will pretty nearly fill the bill. I think any one who reads it will use his utmost endeavours to prevent any one else from falling into the same error. This book of mine is my first offense, committed without premeditation or malice aforethought, and you can gamble that it will be my last. I can only plead xiv A Talk to the Book-sellers my youth, my previous good character, and the fact that the publishers tempted me, and I fell. With each and every volume the pub- lishers will furnish you a box of dope pills, to be administered to prospective purchasers, and the cover will be of a desgin so bizarre and startling as to induce hypnotic trance, weaken the reasoning faculties, produce hysteria and morbid cravings, and act as a mild laxative on the pocketbook. The book will be so arranged that it may be used as a paper-weight, stove-lifter, waffle-iron, egg-beater, sleep-inducer, and cat-destroyer. In addition to all this, it will contain the cream of my after-dinner speeches — slightly curdled and cheesy, but warranted to cure the blues, remove warts and bunions, brighten the intellect, and touch up the liver. Every customer who makes affidavit that he has read the book xv A Few Remarks will receive an endurance medal and a coupon, which, when presented at my hotel, accompanied by five cents, will en- title him to a glass of beer. xvi CONTENTS An Explanation A Talk to the Book-sellers Boyhood in a New England Hotel At a Turkish Bath The Discomforts of Travel Experiences in the National Guard The Landlords in Cuba George Washington . New York as a Summer Resort Patriotism California . . » Joseph Jefferson Bank-Notes My First Case . On Woman and Bloomers . A Eulogy of Sir Henry Irving Crockery .... On the Automobile . Rules for Success in the Hotel Business xvii PAGE V vii i ii 19 29 41 5 1 65 7i 81 89 99 109 119 129 135 143 I5S xviii CONTENTS— Continued PAGE On Policemen . 165 After-Dinner Speakers 171 On the Game of Golf l8l Hotel Suicides .... . 191 New Hotels . 20I Some More About Automobiles . 211 New York for Conventions . 221 Impressions of Boston . . , 23I Hotels in New England 239 Lord Beresford and the Pilgrims . 247 In the South .... • 25> On Clothes and Clothiers . 267 The Raines Law . 277 The Troubles of a Hotel Man . 285 The Hotel Guest . 297 Amenities of Street-car Traveling 3°5 BOYHOOD IN A NEW ENGLAND HOTEL BOYHOOD IN A NEW ENGLAND HOTEL I WAS raised in the State of Connecticut, but it was no fault of mine. My parents, before I reached the age of consent, experienced one of those sudden reverses of fortune which have always been so popular in my family, and we left our beautiful New York home, replete as it was with every luxury, including a large and variegated assort- ment of chattel mortgages, and moved up into Windham County, right in the centre of the pie belt and quite near the jumping-off place. It was a lovely, beautiful, quiet, peaceful, restful, health- ful, desirable, bucolic hamlet, three miles from the cars, and far, far from the 3 4 A Few Remarks madding throng, and where a man could use his knife for the purpose of trans- ferring nourishment to his mouth without attracting undue attention. When I say it was quiet I but feebly describe it, but when I say it was healthful I am well within the mark. If a man died in that village under eighty years of age they hung white crape on the doorbell and carved a little lamb on his tombstone. I left there twenty-five years ago to seek my fortune — which I'm still seeking — but the old people who were old then don't seem any older now. Last summer, when I went up with my children, I noticed that the same old people were about, as lively as ever, and the same old pink pop-corn balls and jackknives were still in the show-case of the store, which I used to think I'd buy when I got rich, but no longer seem to crave. Boyhood in a New England Hotel 5 We boarded at the village hotel, and the experience I gained there has been of incalculable advantage to me in later years. Whenever a knotty question of hotel ethics presents itself to me, I try and decide what my old landlord would have done, and then I do just the opposite. And yet he had some good practical ideas which I should like to adopt in my hotel. For instance, he expected his guests to saw and split their own fire-wood in winter, generously supplying the cord-wood, however, and the ax as well, and also the saw. If I remember aright, we were expected to supply the pork wherewith to grease the saw, but he furnished the saw. My room was in the third story, and its ceiling slanted down rapidly, so that sometimes in the night, when aroused by a rat 6 A Few Remarks bounding joyously around on the quilt, I would sit up suddenly and imbed portions of my intellect in the rafters. In the midst of the room was a sheet-iron stove, of forbidding aspect, which stood like a light- house sequestered in the midst of a great Arctic sea of zinc. It had great powers as a fuel consumer, and also the peculiar quality, so characteristic of country stoves, to wit, the more fire you had in the stove the colder the room seemed to become. I made a scientific examination of that stove, and conclusively demonstrated that of the heat generated thereby, 125 per cent, went up the flue and the balance went into the formation of rheumatism, goose- flesh and chilblains. Being, naturally, of a somewhat shiftless nature, I very rarely laid in a stock of wood at night, and in consequence I frequently had to go down early of a Boyhood in a New England Hotel 7 winter morning and dally with that wood- pile. There are a good many cold things in this world — cold hands, cold feet, cold bottles, marble hearts and frozen faces — but of all cold things in this world, the coldest is an ax-helve which has reposed all of a winter's night on a Connecticut wood-pile. There was another feature of this little hotel which commended itself to me. The food was good, plentiful and nutritious, and it was all put on the table at once. The boarders were privileged to reach out and spear such viands as attracted their fancy, and transfer the same to their plates without loss of time. Compared with this Jeffersonian simplicity of service, the average banquet seems cumbrous and ornate. Yet one thing is certain: things seemed to taste better in those days. Why, I can still remember the thrill of 8 A Few Remarks ecstasy which vibrated through my Gothic system when the sound of the dinner-bell fell upon my strained and listening ear. With what mad haste I dashed up to the good old Colonial wash-stand that stood near the door, dipped out a tin basinful of water, scooped up a handful of soft- soap out of the half-cocoanut, and pro- ceeded to remove my disguise. And then the towel ! Ah, me, the towel ! It was a red-letter day in the history of that hotel when we got a clean towel. And the comb and brush ! Perhaps I ought to draw the veil of charity over the comb and brush ; and yet I used them just as generations had done before me and generations then unborn are doing yet. And when at last, the mysteries of the toilet complete, with shining face and slicked hair I would descend upon Boyhood in a New England Hotel 9 the dining-room and proceed to devastate the eatables — shades of Lucullus, Harvey Parker and Delmonico, how I did relish my victuals in those days. AT A TURKISH BATH AT A TURKISH BATH GENTLE reader, have you ever bathed? Turkish bathed? I wot not. I have, woe is me, and I am now a sadder and a cleaner man. If these remarks, which are meant to be deliciously light and playful, appear to you to be fraught with an underlying varicose vein of gloom, do not hastily pass them by, but remember that they are in the interest of science. I have dallied with this luxury of the Orient (so-called). Also remember that I have contracted a deep sonorous cold, which will, in all probability, fondly nestle in my bosom till my ulster blooms again. The preliminaries of the Turkish bath are simple. You pay one dollar at the 13 14 A Few Remarks door and pass into the cooling-room, where the mercury registers ninety-eight degrees. The appropriateness of this title does not burst upon you until you have visited the inner shrine, where the temperature is up near the boiling point. In the "cooling-room" you are privileged to deposit your valuables in a safe. I did not avail myself of this boon, however, for reasons of a purely private nature, but passed at once into the "disrobing room." This room was not so large as to appear dreary, nor yet so small as some I have lodged in on the Bowery, but was about seven by four. The fur- niture was simple yet chaste, consisting of a chair and a brush and comb long past their prime. The comb was chained to the wall, but the brush was permitted to roam at will. Hastily divesting myself of sealskins, Jaegers and other panoplies At a Turkish Bath 15 of rank, I arranged them in a neat pile in the centre of the room and placed the chair upon them. This simple precaution I had learned while occupying a room separated from its fellows by low parti- tions. Your neighbour may be a disciple of Izaak Walton, and during your sleep or absence may take a cast over the partition with hook and line. What could be more embarrassing than to have one's trousers thus surreptitiously removed. I am a lover of the "gentle art" myself, but I am ever loath to be played for a sucker. I was next ushered into the " hot room, " where a number of gentlemen were lolling about and perspiring affably and fluently. Being of a timid, shrinking nature, I was somewhat embarrassed on entering a room thus filled with strangers, and the more so as I realized that my costume 1 6 A Few Remarks was too bizarre and striking for one of my willowy proportions. So I flung myself with an affectation of easy grace upon a marble divan, but immediately arose therefrom with a vivid blush and a large blister. I then sat upon a seething chair until I came to a boil, when I rose up and endeavoured to alleviate my sufferings by restlessly pacing the room. A few towels were scattered about, and as the nimble chamois leaps from crag to crag, so leaped I from towel to towel in my efforts to keep my feet off the red- hot floor. Having basked in this room until I was quite aglow, I summoned the attendant and told him he could take me out at once or wait yet a little longer and remove me through a hose. I then passed into the "manipulating room," where I was laid out on an unelastic marble slab like a At a Turkish Bath 17 "found drowned" at the Morgue, and was taken in hand by a muscular attendant who proceeded to manipulate me with great violence. He began upon my chest, upon which he pressed until he lifted his feet off the floor and my shoulder-blades made dents in the marble. I mildly asked if it was absolutely necessary that my respiratory organs should thus be flattened, to which he replied with a rich Turkish accent: "Come off, young feller; I know my biz, " and swooped down upon my digestive organs. Manipulation consists of disjointing, dismembering, bruising and rending limb from limb, and may be healthful, but it is not popular with me. This man said he was a pianist also, and that he could manipulate and at the same time strengthen his fingers and improve his technique, and to illustrate he struck a few resounding chords in the small of 1 8 A Few Remarks my back and then proceeded to interpret Wagner up and down my vertebrae, running scales, twiddling up in the treble and thundering down in the bass, just as if I were the keyboard of a Steinway grand, an illusion doubtless heightened by the ivory whiteness of my skin. He wound up by playing that grand show-off piece, the "Battle of Prague," while I joined in with the " Cries of the Wounded. " It was a fine rendering, no doubt, but next time I am to be played upon I shall ask for a soft andante movement — a Chopin nocturne, say. THE DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL THE DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL IT is conceded that there is nothing more educating and refining than travel. It is also conceded that nothing is more conducive to travel than free passes. You can now understand why I am so highly educated and so refined. I know of nothing which so enhances the pleasure of a railroad trip as a pass. It smooths out all the asperities and fatigues of the journey. "It maketh glad the wilderness and the solitary places, and maketh the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. " I have often risen up and left a comfortable fireside, kind friends and solicitous creditors, and journeyed to remote and cheer- 21 22 A Few Remarks less localities in which I was quite uninter- ested, lured thereto by the magic influence of a pass. You all know how Svengali hypnotized poor Trilby, simply by a few passes. The immortal poet, Longfellow, was 'way off when he wrote: "Try not to pass," the old man said: "Dark lowers the tempest overhead; The roaring torrent is deep and wide. And loud that clarion voice replied — "Excelsior." Now the old man probably advised the youth not to try the pass, because he knew if he did and got one he would never be asked to pay fare again without feeling that an outrage was being perpetrated on him. The opium habit is a positive virtue compared with the pass habit. The fact that one is in no way entitled to free transportation only stimulates one The Discomforts of Travel 23 in the desire to ride at some other fellow's expense. One of the most dangerous laws we have is the one forbidding office-holders to accept passes. It keeps our leading citizens out of politics. Some one said (in a moment of temporary aberration of mind) that he'd "rather be right than President" ; but I'd rather have an annual on the New York Central than be an Assemblyman in the tents of wickedness. (That's another Biblical quotation.) The only drawback about using a pass (in addition to the loss of your self- respect) is the harrowing thought, which constantly hovers over you, that in case of accident your mangled remains will be of no cash value to your afflicted family. It is a safe plan when traveling on a pass to spend a portion of your ill-gotten gajns on an insurance policy. Then in case of 24 A Few Remarks accident your last moments will be soothed by the thought that you have beaten the game both ways. But inasmuch as I have never succeeded in worming a pass out of the sleeping-car people, I feel at liberty to make a few remarks on that branch of the railroad service, not in a carping spirit, but more in sorrow than in anger. It is frequently remarked (especially in advertisements) that travel in our palace cars is the acme of comfort and luxury, and I guess they are about as perfect as they can be made and still pay dividends on diluted stock; and yet, after a night in one, I always feel as if I had been through a severe attack of cholera infantum. In winter, especially, the question of temperature is trying. The mercury, soon after you start, bounds up to one The Discomforts of Travel 25 hundred and ten degrees in the shade. You endure this until you melt off several pounds of hard-earned flesh and then you muster up courage to press the button. You "keep a-pushin' and a-shovin'" until you lay the foundation of a felon on the end of your finger, and finally the dusky Ethiopian reluctantly emerges from his place of concealment and gazes at you scornfully. You suggest that the tempera- ture is all right for " India's Coral Strand, " but is too ardent to be compatible with Jaeger hygienic underwear. Whereupon he removes the roof, sides and bottom of the car and the mercury falls to three below zero, while you sit there and freeze to death, not daring to again disturb him lest you sink still further in his estimation. That night he gets square with you for your temerity by making up your berth last; and when, at 3 a. m., you finallv 26 A Few Remarks retire, you wonder why you didn't sit up and doze instead of going to bed to lie wide awake. Some folks sleep in sleeping-cars — any one who has ears can swear to that — but I am not so gifted. I attribute this mainly to the blankets (so-called!). Bret Harte says a sleeping-car blanket is of the size and consistency of a cold buckwheat cake and sets equally as well upon the stomach. Certainly they are composed of some weird, uncanny substance, hot in summer, cold in winter, and maddening in spring and fall. For a man of three foot six they are of ample proportions; for a man six foot three they leave much to be desired, and the tall man is kept all night in sus- pense as to whether he had best pull up the blanket and freeze his feet or pull it down and die of pneumonia. And then the joy of getting your clothes The Discomforts of Travel 27 on in the morning, especially in an upper berth ! To balance yourself on the back of your neck, and while in this constrained attitude adjust your pants without spill- ing out your change or offending the lady in the adjoining section, requires gymnastic ability of no mean order. You are at liberty to vary this exercise, however, by lying on your stomach on the bottom of the car and groping under the berth for your shoes which the African potentate has, in the still watches of the night, smeared with blacking and artfully concealed. But what a change comes o'er the dusky despot as you approach your desti- nation. That frown before which you have learned to tremble is replaced by a smile of childlike blandness. His solicita- tion regarding your comfort during the last ten minutes of the journey is really 28 A Few Remarks touching. And when, at last, he draws his deadly whiskbroom upon you, all your resentment disappears and you freely bestow upon him the money which you ave been saving up to give your oldest daughter music lessons. EXPERIENCES IN THE NATIONAL GUARD EXPERIENCES IN THE NATIONAL GUARD I TOO, am a battle-scarred veteran. For seven long years I fought, bled and died in the Twenty-third Regiment of Brooklyn, thus relieving myself of the possibility of serving a week every year on the jury. I calculate that if I live to the ripe age of three hundred and sixty-four years I will have made by the operation. When I joined, however, I did not look at it in this cold, cynical way. It was in the chill summer of 1876 that I enlisted. The temperature that Juiy, as indicated by the mercury, was above the normal, but nevertheless it proved to 3i 32 A Few Remarks be a cold summer for me. I was in the first flush of early youth then — about the only flush I ever drew to and caught — and had not yet reached the age of con- sent; so my parents consented for me. Often afterward I wished they had been less anxious to gratify my budding military yearnings, for my proud, haughty, seven- dollar-a-week spirit soon chafed under the privations and hardships of a soldier's life. I enlisted under a misconception. I was given to understand that, in the first place, I would acquire a military carriage. A carriage was something I had always wanted. When I got into the awkward squad, and was started in on the " setting- up" drill in order to acquire my carriage, I began to lose my enthusiasm right away. Touching my feet with the tips of my fingers without bending my knees was Experiences in the National Guard 33 not only galling to my pride and severe on my suspenders, but proved to be a physical impossibility, owing to my peculiarly lofty fireproof construction. My feet were too far away. It did not comport, either, with my pre- viously conceived notions of a military career. I had expected to begin at once prancing about behind a band playing martial strains. I had an idea, too, that when arrayed in uniform I would be a dream of martial pomp and splendour, and that beautiful young ladies would strew flowers in my pathway. This proved to be erroneous. When arrayed in uni- form I was a sight, and beautiful young ladies fled swiftly at my approach. 1 will not pain you with a recital of the sickening details of my squad experience, nor the barbarities to which I was sub- jected. At last I was graduated and 34 A. Few Remarks with fear and trembling fell in with the company. I was received with that sweet courtesy and grace with which a new squad or detail is always greeted, and as I attempted to fall in among the men of my own height, was shouldered down the line until finally I landed at the sawed-off end, from whence I was ignominiously dragged by the Sergeant and placed behind a tall Corporal in whose grateful shade I luxuriated for seven years. Never once did I get into the front rank in all that time. The amount of profanity I extracted from that Corporal during my career, however, was a partial recompense. It was a habit of mine when marching or drilling to fall into a dark-brown study, and when my Corporal, who would be serenely bowling along, would suddenly discover himself in advance of the short-legged end of the company, he would naturally Experiences in the National Guard 35 pause, and I, being immediately behind, would proceed to meander up his person, to his great physical inconvenience. He would then make remarks of a nature calculated to pain the refined. It was on rainy and muddy days, however, that I made things particularly interesting for him. By reason of our height we always marched in the gutter, and my Corporal's white trousers when I got through with him were a sight calcu- lated to wring tears from the stoutest washwoman. I don't know how it is now, but in my time it was the favourite practice of the commanding officer to bring us to the position of "carry arms" and then go off and quite forget us until his attention was brought back by the thud of some debilitated warrior falling dead on the floor. ' ' Carry arms ' ' was never a favourite 36 A Few Remarks position of mine, owing, possibly, to my physique — weighing less than the gun and being only about half as thick. ' ' Support arms" I could not enjoy, either, because the hammer, resting on my forearm, used to quickly bore its way into my vitals. "Order arms" was my favourite. There was something restful and soothing about that maneuver which always appealed to me. I joined in 1876 so I could go to the Centennial with the regiment. I went down and got so "het up" that I haven't got quite cooled off yet. Perhaps you remember that Philadelphia was quite sultry that year. * We marched from the armory to South Ferry in heavy marching order. Each man carried, if I recollect aright, provi- sions for six months, a complete set of bedroom furniture, a parlour organ and Experiences in the National Guard 37 a Herring safe. At least, that's the way- it felt. By the time we reached the ferry we were in quite a glow. We camped in Fairmount Park, a lovely spot replete with verdure and mosquitoes. We enjoyed the former and the latter enjoyed us. That experience, how- ever, gave me a realizing sense of the horrors of war which still lingers in my memory. It also gave me a touch of malaria which still lingers in my system. Quelling riots was my specialty. As a riot-queller my reputation was excellent, especially in my immediate family. Per- haps my warlike and ferocious appear- ance had something to do with my success. I was not as fleshy then as I am now, and when arrayed in my shad- bellied coat and my inverted flowerpot hat with a blue-sausage pompon I was a sight calculated to freeze the blood. My 45 38 A Few Remarks figure was such that near-sighted rioters had difficulty in telling which was me and which was the gun. Once when I was quelling a riot up the State, rude, burly rioters came and gazed at me when I was on guard, and as they gazed they came to realize that grim- visaged war with all its horrors was in their midst, and that were they to attempt to monkey with me I was liable at any moment to ' ' cry Havock ! and let slip the dogs of war," but I never did. I was always relieved, however, when they left me unmolested, because I was inclined to be fastidious about imbruing my hands in gore. In fact, I always considered imbruing one's hands in gore to be an untidy habit. Still, I was ever ready at my country's call unless I had a few hours ^tart, and am yet; and as I sat in my richly mort- Experiences in the National Guard 39 gaged home last night, rocking the cradle with one foot and writing this extempo- raneous address with the other, the thought flashed through my mind that perhaps soon again I might prick up my ears like the old war horse at the sound of the bugle, and like the old war horse I might be tempted to answer with a nay. THE LANDLORDS IN CUBA THE LANDLORDS IN CUBA YOU may have noticed in the papers something about the war we have had. It was a brief and glorious war. Some folks are talking so much about the mistakes which the Government made that they forget the glory. We hotel men meet the same class of people occasionally. As long as everything is O. K. they preserve a dignified silence, but let them run up against a spring chicken which has sown its wild oats, or an egg old enough to know better, and straightway their lamentations fill the air. I have but one criticism to make. The Government overlooked the hotel land- lords. It might also be said that the 43 44 A Few Remarks landlords overlooked the Government. I don't think any landlords went to the front. It isn't really necessary for a landlord to go to the front, because he can stay right behind his counter, touch a button, and the "Front" will come to him — and there's always plenty of ice- water on our front ! Suppose, however, that the Secretary of War had appointed some of us hotel men to help out in Cuba. Do you suppose the boys would have lacked for food? Every private would have been supplied with lobster a la Newburgh, and apple dumplings with plenty of hard sauce, and similar delicacies. And landlords would make brave soldiers ! Don't you suppose we would stand up under fire? Look how we get " stood up" every day without a murmur ! Suppose the landlords had been asked The Landlords in Cuba 45 to go up the hill of San Juan — such men as Boldt, of the Waldorf; and Baumann, of the Holland; and Charley Delmonico and Louis Sherry— and that Teddy Roose- velt had given the order to charge ! Don't you suppose that these fellows would have charged? Why, charging is their specialty! Charging up hill and down ! If those fellows had charged, the hearts of the Spaniards would have gone clear down into their boots. When those landlords charge everybody has to go down into his socks. There ought to have been landlords in the navy, too. We'd make good sailors. The Spanish shot would have had no terrors for us. We are all accustomed to highballs. We wouldn't be much good at hand-to-hand fighting, however, for if the order came to repel boarders we'd mutiny on the spot. But at long range 46 A Few Remarks we'd be irresistible. We could have blown the Spanish off the seas. When it comes to "blowing off," you must admit we have no superiors. Sometimes I feel sorry for those Spanish sailors. It certainly was a disagreeable experience for them. We know that they are not good at running. Walking is the specialty of the Spanish. I met one of the Spanish officers and he told me about the engagement. As he didn't understand English and I am quite ignorant of his lingo, our conversation was necessarily limited, but I gathered from him that the experience gave him a feeling of severe ennui. To be hit in the back of the neck by a thirteen-inch projectile is not only galling to the haughty pride of Old Castile, but it is also liable to disarrange the collar button. Personally, I have always found going The Landlords in Cuba 47 to sea trying enough at the best, but to be pursued by a fleet of emotional iron-clads belching and vomiting forth shot and shell in the direction of your southern exposure must add new horrors to mal de mer. Fancy the sensation of being on a vessel which is being perforated with monotonous regularity by cannon-balls of about the size and consistency of Grover Cleveland, until finally the noble fabric, already over- burdened by a Spanish name of sixteen syllables, sinks beneath the wave, and you are constrained to plunge into the moist and heaving billow and make your way to shore, where the noble Cuban army is spitting on its hands in anticipation of your arrival. There is no doubt that Admirals Samp- son and Schley and their fellows done noble. Far be it from me to withhold from them that meed of praise which is their due. I 48 A Few Remarks don't know what "a meed of praise" is, but, whatever it is, I will not withhold it. But I dare say that sometimes, as they hastily adjust their baseball masks on hearing the approaching footsteps of designing females, or see their pictures adorning advertisements of porous plasters and purgative pellets, or see their names pulsating from every lager-beer and oyster saloon, and listen night after night to words of praise from us orators — I dare say that at such times they often wish that some other fellows had got their job. I have never been a popular idol myself, and see no immediate prospect of being one, but, really, I should think being a hero must have its disadvantages. Take the case of poor Hobson, for instance ! When I remember how that heroic man had to kiss his way across the continent, going up against everything The Landlords in Cuba 49 in the female line without regard to age, onions or previous condition of servitude, with never a murmur, my heart bleeds for him. Sinking the Merrimac in the face of the Spanish batteries required nerve, but think of the nerve of exchanging microbes with two hundred and sixty-seven women in one afternoon, with no interval for antiseptics. GEORGE WASHINGTON GEORGE WASHINGTON IF ever a man lived who was justified in being stuck on himself, it was G. Washington, late of Mount Vernon. He has since been stuck on a good many things — principally letters — or, rather, his likeness has. You have all noticed George's likeness as it appears on the two-cent postage stamps, wearing a look of entire self-satisfaction and a collar cut somewhat lower in the neck than is now considered de rigeur among the beau monde. It has frequently and truly been remarked that George was never licked until he got on a postage stamp, and then only when his back was turned. It may not be consid- 53 54 A Few Remarks ered amiss for me to suggest, in connection with this fine old Revolutionary joke, that any one who would lend his counte- nance to some of the recent issues of two- cent stamps deserves to be licked; and I firmly believe that, if the person who compounds the flavouring extract used on the back thereof could be located, his name would go thundering down the ages linked with that of Benedict Arnold, J. Iscariot, and other gentlemen whose popularity is on the wane. But to revert to G. Washington. I repeat that he had just cause to throw bouquets at himself, for certainly he pos- sessed to a preeminent degree the gift of getting his name in the papers and histories and third readers, and having streets and pies named after him, without its costing him a cent. Look at that tale of the little hatchet and the cherry tree, with George Washington 55 which you are doubtless familiar. Think of the free advertising he got out of that comparatively trifling incident ! I used to have that story rubbed into me when a child until it warped and soured a naturally sunny and lovely nature. That George was startled into telling the truth upon this occasion we are bound to admit; but note the forced and ostentatious way in which he did it, as though saying to the grandstand, "Look at me knock the cover off it for three bases." Think, my hearers, how often you yourselves have inadvertently been betrayed into telling the truth, and yet you never set up a claim to be "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of your countrymen." How a man's whole life may be influ- enced by a trifling circumstance. Suppose George's father, instead of being a senti- mental old cuss, on hearing that his son 56 A Few Remarks had been monkeying with edged tools, had hastily removed him to the seclusion of the wood-shed, and had then and there, with a shingle or other convenient weapon, proceeded to tan that portion of George's anatomy which the British were never permitted to gaze upon. Instead of grow- ing up to be the father of his country, he might have become morose and sullen, and developed into a life insurance solicitor or an advertising agent or a map pedler, or even fallen to still greater depths of depravity. The moral of all this is, that one should ever strive to tell the truth, even at some personal inconvenience, especially when one is likely to be found out anyhow. Much has been made of the incident of crossing the Delaware. Every one is sick of the picture representing that aquatic feat. George stands, as you George Washington 57 remember, right in the prow, in the full glare of the calcium, in such a position that, had the boat bumped into one of the numerous cakes of ice which were floating about, he would have taken a tumble into the turgid tide. But George never tumbled ! George never took water ! His features wear an expression, as Bill Nye says, as though he had just become aware of the presence of a glue factory on the opposite shore. His massive brow is crowned with a neat triangular hat of a now, happily, obsolete pattern, and his cloak is carelessly thrown back over his shoulder so as to best display the cute red lining. His whole demeanour is that of innate majesty, commingled with dolce far niente, mix vomica and pro bono publico, and the likeness is so speaking that we can almost hear George say, "It may be a little chilly around here, but it's 58 A Few Remarks a cold day when the father of his country gets left; and, cold as it is, I'm not the only pebble on the beach — there's other coons as warm as me." I have sometimes fancied that the artist did not depict George as he actually appeared on that occasion, for the chances are he wore ear-muffs and chilblains, had a piece of pork bound around his throat with a red flannel rag, and had his feet tied up in hay ; because research shows us that it was a cold, cold winter and George got the frozen face ever and anon or even oftener. Crossing the Delaware was all well enough in its way, but to one accus- tomed to crossing Amsterdam Avenue on the way home from the Colonial Club, in all stages of sobriety, with the elevated road thundering overhead and the cable- cars swooping up and down with clanging bells on the dead level, it seems as if George Washington 59 crossing the Delaware would be a mere frolic. But Valley Forge was tough — I must admit that. When I think of those ragged Continentals waltzing up and down, leaving bloody feet-tracks in the snow, I am greatly moved. I've often had cold feet myself, and have even dallied with cold hands, but I never yet have been called upon to let my rich, red heart' s-blood flow out through my feet at my country's call, and I trust I never will. I never go down into our cafe and gaze upon the free lunch which is there displayed in all its colonial simplicity and severity, but I am forcibly reminded of the sufferings of the starving soldiers at Valley Forge. I hate to stand up here and shatter a public idol, and ruthlessly yank George off the lofty perch where he has been 60 A Few Remarks enshrined in history's pages, but I can't help thinking that in some things he showed a singular indifference to the rights of posterity. Take a little thing, now, like the selection of the date of his birth. Could he possibly have hit upon a more disagreeable date? What is the use of a holiday on the 22nd of February? It's too late for sleighing or skating and too early for golf or bicycling. The only thing it is good for is to break up the business week and give a man an oppor- tunity to hang around the house and smoke too many cigars and aggravate his poor, patient wife, and exasperate his children, and make himself generally obnoxious to all with whom he comes in contact. Perhaps it will not be considered meet for me to sound my own praises, but when the time comes that the anni- versary of my natal day will be made the George Washington 61 occasion of public rejoicings, it is a satis- faction for me to know that I picked out a date when a man can go fishing, or swimming, or shooting, or sailing, and not a bleak, miserable day at the fag end of the most cussed month of the year. And yet,' simple justice demands that I should say that perhaps George was not consulted, and that at that early portion of his career his parents arranged his dates for him. And yet far be it from me to withhold from George that meed of praise which is his due. George certainly had his strong points, and the manner in which he yed tag with the British army, always managing to be on the hunk when they light up with him, and to be "it" most of the time, incontestably proves that he was a smooth article. Take him for all and all, he was a great and good man, and 62 A Few Remarks I trust that nothing which I have said about him will detract from his fame. "It's a wise child that knows its own father,'' and if you want to know the father of your country you must hear both sides. Faith will move mountains, but it will never lift a chattel mortgage, and you can't believe everything you hear. To look at George as he appears in that beautiful portrait in the Colonial Club — one of the eight hundred and seventy-five genuine portraits for which he sat — you would think he was just waiting to feel his wings sprout, but don't you believe he was so slow. During my brief yet ignominious career I have already seen some eight hundred and fifty different houses in which George temporarily so- journed, and he must have been pretty quick in order to have played all these George Washington 63 one-night stands and still preserved his reputation unspotted. In order to pre- serve an unspotted reputation you have got to look out that nobody spots you. NEW YORK AS A SUMMER RESORT NEW YORK AS A SUMMER RESORT SUMMER resorts are not a specialty of mine. In fact, I don't go to summer resorts, except near-by ones, and then only for the day. When night comes I scurry back to little old New York. I never care to wander from my own bathtub. New York is hot sometimes — there's no doubt about it. But a little heat doesn't hurt a man, provided he dresses, eats and drinks rationally. It is also prudent not to carry around too much flesh in summer. I never do. It is also well when eating and drinking to exercise care in the selection of a good eating and drinking place. There are 67 68 A Few Remarks several such in New York. I could mention one in particular, but I hate to talk about myself. And, besides, I am not in the hotel business for profit, but simply for my health and for the good of the public. Children ought to get out of the city in the summer. They need green grass and trees, shady lanes, bosky dells, sequestered nooks, sylvan glades, babbling brooks and the whole business, and it is perfectly proper that their female relatives should accompany them. But for an able-bodied male adult, between the ages of eighteen and eighty, New York City offers un- equaled attractions for the summer. In the first place, he has his own bath- tub, and that means much nowadays. To perform one's ablutions with the aid of a cute little pitcher containing a pint of lukewarm water, and a coy, shrinking New York As a Summer Resort 69 towel about the size and consistency of a second-hand porous plaster, is calculated to make one peevish and dissatisfied. And then a man has his bed with real hair in it, and pillows which he can find without a search warrant. And he has his clothes in his closets and wardrobes in a Christian way. This having to lift seven trays out of a Saratoga trunk every time you want to get at your lingerie soon palls upon the jaded senses. And if one feels the need of an occasional outing, just think what New York has to offer, lying, as she does, environed by ocean, rivers, bay, and that most glorious of inland seas, Long Island Sound. No other place affords such an endless variety of water trips. Every day for weeks, if need be, some new excursion on the water may be taken, leaving the city in the morning and returning in the evening yo A Few Remarks in time for dinner, and after that a season of calm enjoyment on some aerial roof- garden, where cool drinks and invigorating soubrettes are freely dispensed. New York is good enough for me. And, although I am perfectly willing to accept such sympathy as may be lavished upon me by those who spend the summer away from the city, I find very little difficulty in beguiling the tedium of the heated term right here in the metrolopus. PATRIOTISM PATRIOTISM IT is every man's duty to become patriotic at least once a year, especially when it can be done for ten dollars a plate, including wine. Certainly it is a relief, after putting in a hard day's work swear- ing off taxes, and evading jury duty, and trying to bunco the commonwealth in other ways, to attend a banquet and get filled up with enthusiasm and spiritus frumenti and love of country, and shout oneself hoarse at the mention of "Old Glory." We go home feeling that we are better men — better citizens — better patriots — but awake the next day, alas ! with a dark-brown and entirely different feeling, and resume our "ways that are dark and our tricks that are vain." 73 74 A Few Remarks I know of nothing which stimulates patriotism like a trip abroad. People who, when at home, are inclined to be lukewarm and criticize our Government severely, become violently and painfully American across the water, insist on unfurling the Starry Banner upon very slight provocation, and make themselves generally obnoxious. "Oh, yes," they say, "your pyramids are well enough, but you ought to see the glue factory down our way !" But note how their patriotism peters out as they approach our shores and prepare to give the customs officers the dinkey-dink. Alas ! how few of us can stand the test of patriotism when we desire to bring in a sealskin sack or a fur-lined overcoat ! An excellent stimulus to patriotism are the societies which have been formed for the purpose of looking up progenitors Patriotism 75 who were not fortunate enough to avoid the draft in 1776. How eagerly we pry into the past to find some forefather who acquired glory, chilblains and undying fame at Valley Forge or some other Revolutionary winter resort. The fact that we have numerous poor relatives right at hand, clamouring for recognition, interests us not at all. We may have fathers and grandfathers who fought and bled in 1862, but we take no heed of them. When they turn out with their torn flags, meekly following the smug militia, we smile condescendingly and turn away. They are too recent. What stirs our blood is the thought that we are eligible to become Sons or Daughters of the Revolution, Children of the Revolution, and wear cute little badges, and be Regents and things, and have banquets once a year, and fall on each other's necks 76 A Few Remarks and tell each other what hot stuff we are. Personally, I never took much stock in this remote ancestor business. I'd rather have one little innocent child to warm my heart and gladden my home than a whole graveyard full of ancestors, and I guess I'm more likely to. I know people who are so busy tracing their pedigrees back to Alfred the Great that they can't find time to pay their wash bills. What's the use of knowing that diluted royal blood courses in your veins, when the butcher with his little bill is roosting on your doorstep ? In my opinion, what we need to worry about is posterity. There is no satisfaction in knowing that you have come down straight from a royal line when your oldest son is spending all his evenings drawing to a royal flush. What comfort can it give you to know Patriotism 7 7 that your ancestor smelt powder at Bunker Hill, when your second boy is all smelt up with cigarettes? "Let the dead bury its dead." We are not liable for our ancestors — but for posterity we are directly responsible, or think we are. There are times, of course, when it pays to be exclusive. Noah was doubtless better off in the ark, mingling with his own set, than he would have been out in the swim with the vulgar herd. But, as a rule, in this brand new democratic country, it isn't safe to acquire blue blood too rapidly, for if we pry into the past too closely we are liable to come with a dull, sickening thud up against some ancestor calculated to bring the blush of shame to our patrician cheek. I did not attend the crowning of Lavinia, Queen of the Holland Dames, but I was at the French Bull Terriers' Convention which 78 A Few Remarks followed it the next evening, and I think I witnessed the more dignified function of the two. Certainly there was no doubt about the breeding of the bull terriers, and they displayed exquisite taste, for one of them tried to bite me. I don't believe one of them would have been guilty of the absurdity of wearing a Siegel-Cooper crown in this land of the free, because a bulldog never bites ofT more than he can chew. Lavinia must, have been 'most tickled to death when thai crown was stuck on her — and I imagine that was the only thing that was stuck on her, with the exception, perhaps, of the coronation expenses. When it was suggested to Washington, at the close of the war, that he accept a crown at the hands of the army, he replied that he was at a loss to conceive what he had ever done to have it supposed that he Patriotism 79 could for a moment listen to a suggestion so fraught with mischief to his country. That shows the difference between a great man with a great mind and a little woman with a big head. CALIFORNIA CALIFORNIA WE who come from the cold, effete and clammy East, filled as we are with pride and codfish, pie and self-esteem, have been touched and electrified by the kind- ness and courtesy which has been so prodigally bestowed upon us hotel men from the moment we entered the portals of this lovely land. California is well named the "Golden State," for though the precious metal has well-nigh disap- peared from her streams and hills, there is a stock of pure gold in the hearts of its people which seems inexhaustible. Now, that is quite a burst of eloquence for me ! Some folks simply have eloquence to burn and don't mind the smell of smoke ; but with me eloquence is as infrequent as 83 84 A Few Remarks a porterhouse steak in a ten-dollar-a-week boarding-house. I suffer from an ingrowing intellect. I trust, therefore, that you will fully appreciate my remark about the gold in your hearts and understand that I don't mean to intimate that you have a streak of yellow in your make-up. Since deciding to make a trip to Cali- fornia, I have been reading up the history of the '49-ers and what they went through to get out here. Some of our party went through a good deal to get here. Some of them went through everything I had, except my return ticket, and now I find it so lovely here I almost wish they'd got that, too. This delicious, languid climate just suits my dolce jar niente style of archi- tecture. I'd like to get some not too ardent position out here, like picking blossoms off a century plant. California 85 " My willing soul would stay In such a frame as this; And sit and sing herself away To everlasting bliss." That is from one of Watts' s hymns, and I have always noticed that old Watts knew what's Watt. But, instead, I'll have to hurry back to New York and chase the fitfu and elusive boarder — a pastime more exciting than profitable in these days. But come what may, we hotel men will never forget the boundless hospitality of the "wild and woolly West," and the glories of this land of sunshine and of flowers, and the wonders of this climate. We are having some of this climate canned to take home with us. Already we have forgotten the fatigues and privations of our trip across the continent; of how, when crossing the desert, no water passed our parched lips for many moons; of how our eyesight has 86 A Few Remarks been impaired looking for the three-of-a- kind that never came ; of how, night after night, our rest has been broken and the ambient air rudely shattered by the stertorous breathing of our plump con- tingent, and the conversational powers of our sisters and our cousins and our aunts; of how we came flying across the continent, the Chicago landlords in front of us, the Boston landlords behind us — there we were like Mohammed's coffin, suspended between heaven and earth, or perhaps it would be better to say, " 'twixt the devil and the deep sea. " And we have almost forgotten the awful dust — ■ for once New York had to take Chicago's dust, but we passed it along to Boston. And the changes of climate ! As soon as we got on our linen dusters and palm-leaf fans we ran into fourteen feet of snow, and by the time we had donned our fur over- California 87 coats and red mittens the mercury went up to one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade. Really some one ought to invent a patent, automatic, self -regulating, back-action, ball bearing, self-adjusting style of underwear for transcontinental travelers. All these privations and hardships have been forgotten since we entered California, and could the X-rays be turned upon us the fact would be disclosed that we are filled to overflowing with kindly feelings toward our hosts, as well as with prunes and fruit, canned goods, native wines, evaporated peaches, liver-pills and gratitude. JOSEPH JEFFERSON JOSEPH JEFFERSON MR. JEFFERSON has graphically described the horrors of stage- fright and he knows its symptoms, and if he will diagnose my case he won't need any X-rays to see that I have it in its most malignant form. It may seem strange that a man who knows enough to keep a hotel open doesn't know enough to keep his face closed; but it is no fault of mine. Why, Mr. Toast- master, with all these orators sitting around, bursting with suppressed speeches, have you sprung me upon these innocent people ? I would like to say some of the graceful things about Mr. Jefferson that are boiling within me, but I haven't the power. I 9i 92 A Few Remarks am not built that way ; and besides, I am afraid his hat will bind a little to-morrow as it is, and it would be a pity to have him at this late day get stuck on himself. It's a dangerous thing, Mr. Jefferson, to get stuck on an actor. I have followed Mr. Jefferson's career with interest from early boyhood (that is, from my boyhood). At first I watched him from above — from the family circle, where we had to take off our jackets so we could sit closer. I watched him as "Rip Van Winkle" while my scalding tears fell upon the heads of the bloated aristocrats beneath until they had to raise their umbrellas, and my merry, infectious laugh echoed and reverberated from those far heights until the guardian of the gallery swooped down and repressed my boyish enthusiasm with a club. As I became more affluent I descended Joseph Jefferson 93 through the various strata of the theatre until now I have reached the $2.50 seats purchased on the sidewalks — which are said to be worthless — and some day yet I may get into a box. And still my scalding tears fall over Rip's tribulations, but, alas ! my merry, infectious laugh is not now sufficiently contagious to occasion alarm. I relate all this, not that it is of the slightest interest, but I want Mr. Jefferson to know that I have freely contributed to his support all these years, for he must realize that, although I can't talk, money talks. I know enough to put up, if I don't know enough to shut up. But I never thought to stretch my legs under the same mahogany with Mr. Jefferson (you notice how I have stretched 'cm), and as I stand here, six feet in my stocking feet (for I do wear stockings, 94 ' A Few Remarks although my looks may belie it), I can feel myself swelling with pride — it may not be visible to the naked eye, but I am swelling — so that I almost fear I shall be laid up to-morrow with what Artemus Ward used to call "a severe attack of embonpoint." And yet I don't know why I shouldn't sit at the table with him, for there are some things in common between the actor and the landlord, and yet more which are not in common. The landlord gives the people bed and board, while in the theatre they get no bed but sometimes get bored, though never, of course, when Mr. Jefferson is on the stage. The landlord gives his patrons the best the market affords (in his advertisements), while the actor has a certain delicacy about receiving from his audiences the products of the market — Joseph Jefferson 95 especially the vegetable products. Poor Bill Nye used to have a recipe for removing egg-stains from the garments of lecturers and actors — but that is neither here nor there. The pathway of our guest has for many years been strewn with flowers, not fruit — and certainly not hen fruit. And, finally, while it is the actor's privilege to prance upon the boards, it is the landlord's privilege to prance upon the boarders. You remember when Rip inquires of the innkeeper — "Is this the village of Falling Water?" and the innkeeper replies, or would if he were up-to-date: "Yes; since Tom Piatt took to regulating the heavens above and the earth beneath, we have had water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. And the Raines bill descended and the floods came, and the wind blew and beat upon that house, and 9 6 A Few Remarks dear old Governor Morgan hardly knew which side of the fence to drop on in order to keep out of the wet; and now the clubs have to hang their liquor licenses on the outer walls and the free lunch has vanished like a tale that is told, and there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth: and the band plays on." That sentence is a little involved, but it shows that I am highly educated. What a character was that of Rip ! If such a person should appear in real life to-day, with that clouded intellect and those Pfefferian whiskers trimmed to every favouring gale, he'd be sent to Congress as a silver Senator in spite of everything. As a landlord I have had much to do with actors and they have had much to do with me, and some of them have done me. I am the proud possessor of perhaps the largest and most Joseph Jefferson 97 interesting collection of actors' trunks extant. If I were asked to describe a vacuum I would say, "A vacuum is the contents of an actor's trunk left with a landlord as collateral for unpaid board." If the Cathode rays were to penetrate one of these trunks, when they got inside they would die of homesickness. I haven't one of Mr. Jefferson's trunks, however. I wish I had and then I could say, with Shakespeare's Lucius: "Draw you near, To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk." BANK-NOTES BANK-NOTES AS I sat here this evening, listening to the strains of that fine old banker's anthem, entitled, "When You Ain't Got No Money, Why You Needn't Come Around," I was thinking what a grand idea it was for you magnates to get together once a year to exchange ideas and settle among yourselves what shall be done, and who shall be done, and how you will do them. Personally, I'd prefer to exchange checks rather than ideas with many here present; not but what the ideas are all right, but somehow, when money talks, I am always a fascinated listener. This is the first opportunity I have had of meeting you bank presidents collect- IOI 102 A Few Remarks ively, and when you were thawed out. I have met most of you individually, when you were frozen stiff. I never supposed you could warm up, as you seem to have done, my previous impressions having been of the "How'd You Like to Be the Iceman?" order. Sometimes I have thought I'd almost rather go without the money than get a congestive chill in a bank president's office, and have him gaze into my eyes, and read the inmost secrets of my soul, and ask unfeeling questions, and pry rudely into my past, and throw out wild suggestions about getting Mr. Astor to indorse for me, and other similar atrocities. And even if I succeed in deceiving him he leads me, crushed, humiliated and feeling like thirty cents, to a fly cashier, who, taking advantage of my dazed condition, includes in my three- months' note, not only Christmas and the Bank -Notes 103 Fourth of July, but St. Patrick's Day, Ash Wednesday, and sixteen Sundays, so that by the time he has deducted the interest, what's coming to me looks like a Jaeger undershirt after its first interview with an African blanchisseuse. That's the kind of thing the poet had in mind when he wrote : ''I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows." I have observed that one's reception at a bank varies somewhat with the condition of the money market. Go in when money is easy and the president falls on your neck, calls you by your first name, and cheerfully loans you large sums on your Balloon Common and your Smoke Preferred, and you go on your way rejoicing. The next day, news having arrived that a Gordon Highlander has strained a tendon in his leg while sprinting away from a Dutchman near Ladysmith, money goes up to 180 104 A Few Remarks per cent, a minute, and you get a note requesting you to remove your Balloon Common and your Smoke Preferred and substitute government bonds therefor. And still you wonder at crime. But if you really want to know the meaning of the terms "marble heart" and "icy eye," go into one of these refrigerating plants for a loan when money is tight. It is prudent at such times to wear ear-muffs and red mittens fastened together by tape so they can't be lost, for you will need 'em. As soon as you reach the outer air — which will be in about a second — run home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster on what remains of your self-esteem. Bankers are too prone to judge a man by his appearance, so that the very men who need money most have the hardest work to get it. They are apt, especially at the Bank-Notes 105 City Bank, to discriminate against the feller who looks rocky, in favour of the Rockefeller. Clothes do not make the man. If they did, Hetty Green wouldn't be where she is, and Russell Sage would be in the Old Ladies' Home. If Uncle Russell had to travel on his shape, he never would see much of the world Yet beneath that ragged coat there beats a heart which as a beater can't be beat — a heart as true (so the Standard Gas people say) as true as steal. But, after all, banks and trust companies do a lot of good in a quiet way, especially to their directors. See what a convenience some of our trust companies have been to their directors of late. It would some- times be mortifying to these directors to have to attempt to borrow money on cer- tain securities in institutions with which they were not connected, because, instead 106 A Few Remarks of getting the money, they might get six months. I notice that the Secretary of the Treas- ury says that 105 per cent, of the bank failures are occasioned by the directors borrowing all the funds and thoughtlessly neglecting to return the same. This is not as it should be. Directors should be satis- fied with attending meetings and trying to look sagacious at $10 per look, and not selfishly insist upon getting away with all the boodle. Such business methods are not only discouraging to the stockholders and annoying to the depositors, but remove all incentive to effort from the cashier and note teller. Nor do I think that any man should be eligible to act as a director after he attains the age of 100 years. The hardships are too severe. Sometimes when a director, in the pursuit of his duties, has to examine the Bank-Notes 107 securities of a bank, he is liable to suddenly come across collaterals the sight of which may bring on heart failure. I know of one lovely old gentleman, who examined an uptown bank, and he came in contact with so much Ice, common and preferred, that he got severely frost- bitten. I say, let the young men take up the heat and burden of the day. There are lots of us who in time will develop into excellent borrowers, and to whom a weekly ten-dollar gold piece will be as. was the manna to the children of Israel. You all know my address. MY FIRST CASE MY FIRST CASE I WAS a member of the bar once myself, but am now trying to live an honest life. It was no fault of mine. My people had an idea that I had a giant intellect which I was artfully concealing, and that the noble profession of the law was the one in which I could cut the most con- gealed aqua. And so I studied law, but not to the extent of unduly straining my mind. Finally I went up to Poughkeepsie to stand my examination. Two questions were propounded to me, both of which I answered incorrectly, and so amidst wild enthusiasm (on my part) I was given a diploma and let loose upon a cold, clammy and unappreciative community. in ii2 A Few Remarks I was frequently assured that there was plenty of room at the top, but I didn't find it so; and as for the bottom — well, there wasn't even standing-room down there ! I distinctly remember my first case. It is easy to remember my cases, as they were not numerous. It was entitled "Scully vs. the Canal-boat Hottentot." Scully was the proprietor of a pair of fiery, un- tamed mules, which, at the time herein- after mentioned, were bounding joyously along attached to a canal-boat going east, upon the pellucid waters of the Erie Canal. My memory is not clear whether the waters were pellucid or opaque, but that is imma- terial, irrelevant and incompetent anyhow. Suddenly there loomed up, coming with lightning speed from the opposite direction, the canal-boat Hottentot, like- wise propelled by a team of two-mule My First Case 113 power. My clients were the mules first mentioned, or rather their owner, to wit, Scully. You must excuse me if I get my client mixed up with the mules, but it is pretty hard to distinguish a man, who was jackass enough to be my client, from a mule. Well — Scully was my client. It was rough on Scully, but somebody had to be my first client. As the two canal-boats approached each other, my client dropped his tow- rope so it would go under the keel of the Hottentot, but, unfortunately, something was loose down there ; the rope caught, and my clients — the aforesaid mules — were jerked into the canal, and with a gurgling sigh they sank into the pellucid or opaque (whichever it was) depths, and stayed there several hours before they could be extricated, and when at last they were extricated life was extinct. H4 A Few Remarks It was a very sad case ! I was deeply touched. My client was also touched, but not deeply. I only touched him for ten dollars. I brought suit in admiralty, libeled the Hottentot, and the case came up before Judge Blatchford. You all remember Judge Blatchford — amiable, docile, pa- tient, gentle, sentimental Judge Blatch- ford ! I remember starting in to open the case. I thought I had a good case, and as I drew an affecting picture of my clients — the mules — one moment so full of life and so empty of oats, surcharged with the infectious mirth and gaiety so characteristic of mules on the tow-path; the next moment struggling for life in the dark, murky, pellucid or opaque waters of the canal, I thought the Judge would be moved — and he was. But he wasn't moved the way I wanted him to be. My First Case 115 I forget whether he cast aside the judicial ermine and came down off the bench to get at me, or simply threw things at me from where he was, but the next thing I remember I was hiding in my cellar in Brooklyn waiting for Scully to leave the city. That case disgusted me with the law. I said to myself : ' ' What is the use of my staying in this business and crowding out Evarts and Abe Hummel and putting out Joe Choate's lights — men who have families dependent on them for support? I will go higher. I will go into some business where a man with a three-ply intellect will be appreciated." By this hasty action on my part the Bar was deprived of one of its brightest jewels. My family physician has been trying ii6 A Few Remarks to lift a mortgage which has been perching upon his residence, and what little time I could get away from him I have had to devote to the engrossing occupation of attending on supplementary proceedings, so I have had to rather neglect my literary work of late. This physician persuaded me to start a garden, but whether from philanthropic motives or because he lives next door and keeps hens, I have not yet determined. He said, if I would get out early every monvng and irritate the garden with a hoe, while the cool, fresh breezes fanned my brow, it would have a benign and mellowing effect upon my liver. He also volunteered to supply me with watermelon and cucumber seed. Also cuttings from his favourite flower — the night-blooming hypodermic syringa. Poor trusting fool, I listened to his honeyed words. I raised My First Case 117 a large crop of watermelons, cucumbers, blisters and chills and fever. The latter, especially, grew and flourished with great luxuriance. Over the cucumbers and watermelons I will draw the veil. Suffice it that it was a busy summer for my physician, and soon the mortgage herein- before referred to was transferred from his house to mine. He was wont to drop in on me two or three times a day at three dollars a drop, and he would hold a caucus, or perhaps it would be better to call it a mass meeting — a blue-mass meeting — and he would smoke my twenty-five cent cigars while I would sit by with a cynical smile and a clinical thermometer on my Kps. In the fall he gave me the freedom of his graperies, but I was onto him by that time, and firmly grasping my ver- miform appendix I fled from his presence. ON WOMAN AND BLOOMERS ON WOMAN AND BLOOMERS IT seems presumptuous in this favoured land, where woman reigns supreme, for a poor, weak, downtrodden man to rise up and try to get a word in edgeways in her behalf. My limited knowledge of woman leads me to believe that she is quite capable of speaking for herself, early and often, morning, noon and night — and especially night— because all the married men will agree with me that at no time does woman rise to such sublime heights of eloquence as in the still watches of the night, when her poor, overworked, pa- tient husband pursues his winding way homeward, and endeavours to pick the front-door lock with a blue chip which he has neglected to cash in. 121 122 A Few Remarks The time has been when woman was looked upon as man's inferior, and it is said that in some of the older countries she still occupies a secondary place, but here she can truly say " I'm monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute." And although she does not yet wear the breeches, she is certainly progressing rapidly in that direction, and it won't be long before we men will have to sneak up in the chilly night and go through our wife's bloomers in order to secure the wherewithal to pay the household expenses. I was in Boston this winter. You know the ladies greatly outnumber the men down there, and a truly modest man hates to go about without a chaperon. I got on a trolley-car filled with ladies. I was the only male passenger, and being of a shy and shrinking nature, I was On Woman and Bloomers 123 in quite a nutter for fear some bold female would stare at me. But, strange as it may seem, not one of them so much as looked at me, or even offered me a seat. As I stood with averted gaze, my eye was attracted by a sign in the car which read, "Half the people in this car are wearing Bunker Hill pants." That statement was incorrect, but it was the voice of prophecy. While on the subject of bloomers I will take advantage of the fact that the ladies are where they can't talk back, to say that I am rejoiced to see that bloomers in New York are ceasing to bloom. 1 have but one objection to them. I admit they are healthful (I speak from hearsay), as well as sensible and comfortable, and they may be the coming garb, but certainly not the becoming garb. To the married man, who is sometimes commissioned to 124 "A Few Remarks go into the closet and fetch his wife's purse, which he is to find in the pocket of her pink wrapper, any simplification of female attire might seem welcome, but I we draw the line at bloomers. We don't mind being tied to a woman's apron- strings, but we'd hate like thunder to be hitched to her suspenders. Bloomers may- be all right to strike matches on, but the girls will find they are mighty poor things to make matches in. Ladies, be as rational as you will, and divide your skirts or reef them, or fly them at half-mast if necessary, but I beg of you, do not give up the petticoat quite yet — that white banner which, when flung to the breeze, is the standard about which every true man will rally to do your lightest bidding. I glory in the emancipation of woman, and I do not grumble when asked to stay On Woman and Bloomers 125 at home and mind the baby while my wife goes bicycling, but when urged to act as chief engineer of a baby carriage, I am liable to murmur and repine and get balky. There are some avocations which the proud and haughty spirit of man will not brook, and propelling a perambulator is one of them — unless he happens to live in Brooklyn, where this sport is quite the rage. I met a friend over there once wheeling a young female girl of tender years, and when I rallied him about it he said, ' I've got a good thing in this baby carriage, and when I have a good thing I believe in pushing it along." Still, I think we ought to help our wives more in the care of the children. When the baby, for instance, awakens in the dead of the night, as is the custom of babes, and proceeds to lift up its pre- maturely developed voice and make Rome 126 A Few Remarks howl, it isn't quite the fair thing for the male parent to utter a snort of rage and bury his head under the pillow. Rather let him rise up and take the little one with the abnormal vocal accomplishments tenderly in his arms, and, crooning some low, sweet lullaby, walk up and down for some forty or fifty miles, ever and anon stepping on a carpet-tack or taking a fall out of the rocking-chair, and he will find, after a few hours, that the babe will fall into a sweet slumber, if the father doesn't happen to fall dead first. By little acts of kindness like this we can greatly endear ourselves to our wives, and also permit them to sleep soundly and store up the requisite strength to attend bargain sales and pink teas on the morrow. However, "with all their faults we love them still." We may poke fun at them or take on ill-fitting airs of superiority over On Woman and Bloomers 127 them, but down deep in our hearts we know that all that makes life worth living for us comes from the love and devotion of good women. They make the world brighter and better and purer and sweeter. God bless them alL A EULOGY OF SIR HENRY IRVING A EULOGY OF SIR HENRY IRVING A SOBER, able-bodied eulogizer with a good address and a boiled shirt can get a pretty steady winter's job at the Lotos Club at board wages. I have, in my poor, weak way, eulogized several distinguished men here, all of whom, I am happy to say, are now convalescent. I eulogized Joe Choate, and he got a job at the Court of St. James; I eulogized Horace Porter, and he is now playing one-night stands at the Moulin Rouge; Doctor Depew, and he not only got sent to Washington, but got a raise of wages at the Grand entral Depot. The only man who really appreciated my efforts was dear old Joe Jefferson. 131 132 A Few Remarks When I gave him to understand that I was anxious to see him in one of his matchless characterizations he inquired if I had a family that shared my anxiety, and when informed that I had, he gener- ously tendered all hands a pass to the family circle. The Lord loves a cheerful giver, but the Lord help any one who strikes Joe for a free pass ! I can understand that the life of an actor must be a trying one, and success difficult to achieve, and it must be a source of great gratification to Sir Henry to feel that he has done so much to elevate the stage as well as the price of admission. But he deserves success, and the last time I gave up $3 to behold him, and afterward, with a lot of enthusiasts, took his horses from his carriage and dragged him in triumph two miles to his hotel, I really felt that I had had a run for my money. A Eulogy of Sir Henry Irving 133 But if, Sir Henry, in gratitude for this beautiful tribute, you should feel tempted to reciprocate by taking my horses from my carriage and dragging me in triumph through the streets, I beg that you will restrain yourself, for two reasons : the first reason is, that I have no horses: the second is, that I have no carriage. CROCKERY CROCKERY CROCKERY and hotels are allied in- dustries. So long as there are two hundred hotels in New York City to break china the crockery business must nourish. Were it not for the breakage of crockery, the hotel man might have a show. But how we do smash it ! You recall Tennyson's poem beginning "Break, break, break !' ' Alfred must have been stopping in a hotel when he penned that line, so fraught with joyousness to the crockery man, so fraught with sadness to the hotel man. I have always suspected that the employees of hotels are in league with the crockery dealers. Talk about a "Bull in a China shop" ! It is nothing 137 138 A Few Remarks to an able-bodied adult female Irish lady in a hotel pantry. You have all noticed "The Pottery on the Hotel Table." When you first glance at your plate you are in doubt whether it is really a plate or a circular saw, owing to the nicks on the edge. On closer examination, however, you will probably find that it is one of Straus's rolled-edge non-chippable plates. You also notice in the bottom of the plate something which looks like a Herald war-map. This is owing to the fact that it is of French china made in Trenton, New Jersey, and warranted not to check or star. At Carlsbad I was shown some elastic china which wouldn't break if dropped on the floor, but I understand the man who tried to intro- duce it into this country was pushed over Niagara Falls to join the scoundrel who gave away the secrets of Masonry. Crockery 139 Of course you will have your little jokes and call crockery by the playful misnomers of "iron china," "stone china," " graniteware, " and the like, but all the same I notice that it grows more and more brittle every year; and the crockery man gets richer and richer, and the hotel man gets poorer and poorer, so that the income tax hath for him no terrors; and the Irish lady crieth "Ha, Ha!" as with ghoulish glee she merrily clatters and chips and bangs and busts and breaks and smashes. And as for hotel waiters, the waiter who lacks the gymnastic ability to pre- cipitate himself head first down a flight of stairs with a trayful of china in either hand is looked upon by his associates in crime as a mere tyro. The hall-boy, too! Much of a hall- boy's life is spent in the futile attempt to 140 A Few Remarks force a cube of ice eight inches in diameter into a crockery pitcher four inches in diameter. What is the consequence? The crockery man goes as Ambassador to Turkey, or is permitted to spurn the office of Mayor of the City of New York, while the hotel man hastily packs his belongings in a collar-box and moves over to the poorfarm. Even our wives stand in with you. Once let a woman become a victim of the crockery habit and her husband might as well hang out the red flag at once. Most of our happy homes are so replete with bric-a-brac and china that in order to turn around with safety the man of the house is compelled to go out in the back yard. I have always regretted that I did not stick to the crockery business myself. A business in which it is only necessary Crockery 141 to mark an article in plain figures "$1.98, reduced from $2" in order to throw the entire female population into a condition of nervous hysteria, and to cause them to rise up in a body and desert children, home and husband, and to climb up one another's backs in frantic effort to secure that article ; such a trade appeals strongly to my business acumen. I have noticed, too, the insidious way in which the crockery man is gradually absorbing all other business enterprises. Let a dry goods dealer, in a moment of temporary aberration of mind, permit a crockery man to rent a small space in his store, and his name is Dennis. That constitutes what might be termed the entering wedge. You remember the fable of the Arab and the camel? The Arab in a moment of weakness per- mitted the camel to put his head under 142 A Few Remarks his tent, and the camel "kept a-pushin' and a-shovin"' until he got his whole body in, and the hospitable Arab was obliged to move out before the expiration of his lease ; which proves that the camel had sand and push. ON THE AUTOMOBILE ON THE AUTOMOBILE I READ in one of the papers which shines for all at two cents a shine a day or two ago, that at this dinner the Honourable Job Hedges and Simeon Ford would " touch lightly upon the automobile." I don't know why it was assumed that we would touch lightly upon the automobile. The Honourable Job, being a lawyer, would, naturally, "touch" anything he came in contact with, but not necessarily lightly. I, being a hotel-keeper, get touched by the public right along, but do very little touch- ing myself. My business is melancholy, but not touching. I would much rather touch lightly on the automobile, however, than have the automobile touch lightly on me. And that's no joke ! 145 146 A Few Remarks Our streets have always been hard enough to navigate, heaven knows, but nowadays, with the electric trolleys and the automobiles added, pedestrianism has degenerated into a mere succession of frenzied leaps and convulsive stops, and our progress to and fro is like that of the startled fawn, which " Bounds from crag to crag, Hearing the hunter's horn. " Shakespeare, who was up to date and a little ahead of it, said : " No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns." This eternal horn-blowing is a nuisance and a nerve-destroying crime, and is unnecessary and silly. I have noticed that the smaller the auto the bigger the horn. To hear one of these little tin washboilers, with a one-horse-power engine and a twelve-horse-power horn and a twenty- mule-power driver, coming down the On the Automobile 147 avenue, you'd suppose that Gabriel with his trump had broken loose at last, and when you look up, expecting to see a trump, you see nothing but a two-spot. I don't claim that every man who runs an auto is a jackass, but I do claim that every jackass runs an auto. I run one myself. But when I run over a pedestrian, I just mow him down in a quiet, dignified and refined manner, and don't add insult to injury by frightening him to death before I kill him. I am an automobilist, not from choice, but in self-defense. Some achieve auto- mobiles and some have automobiles thrust upon them. I live in a suburban town which was early seized with automo- biliousness in its most virulent form. One of my immediate neighbours bought a machine of limited capacity for every- 148 A Few Remarks thing but noise. Its capacity for noise was unlimited. It was also long on smell. At first the rest of us talked of tar and feathers. Some of us thought that was too mild and that the punishment should fit the crime. And while we hesitated, we all got the craze, and now we are all tarred with the same stick. This was my daily programme for a time : I would start to drive to the station. Presently the earth would tremble, my horses would tremble, my coachman would tremble, and I would tremble most of all, and with rumblings and snortings and smells indescribable, my neighbour would dash by. I would then breathe a prayer, disentangle my horses from a barbed-wire fence, pluck my wagon from a nearby tree, reconnect them, and proceed on my way rejoicing. Presently I would overhaul my friend. On the Automobile 149 He and his chauffeur would be reclining on their backs under the auto, doing stunts with spanners and monkey wrenches. I would then take my neighbour into my wagon, drive him to the station, and his machine would wait to be towed home by my team. My neighbour argued that the auto was the coming mode of locomotion, and that the horse must go. I agreed with the latter proposition. I reminded him that one of my best horses, hearing his approach, decided that he must go, and that I thought he was going yet. I stayed with him awhile, but decided he was too swift a proposition for me to keep company with. I never could decide whether it is the appearance of the machine, or the smell, or the raiment of the driver that gets into a horse's nerves, but I reckon it's the rai- ment. The spiritual description of the Lily 150 A Few Remarks of the Field applies to them pretty well: "They toil not, neither do they spin, but verily I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." The first machine I looked at was small, simple and inexpensive. It had but one cylinder. The salesman said that was an advantage. He said a four-cylinder engine would get out of order four times as often. This machine had a handle on the side like a barrel-organ. He showed me how to make it go fast, and slow, and stop, and start, and all while the machine stood in the store. A child of ten years could run it, he said. " Now, if you want to get out of a tight place," he said, " get a sudden move on — you touch this lever called the accelerator." He touched it, and with that something went wrong, and the handle I have alluded On the Automobile 151 to flew around and smote him violently in the abdomen. When he came to I told him a child of ten might run the machine, but the child would have to have a very strong stomach. Next, a friend took me out in a base- burning steam vehicle. He had a third man with him, and I sat behind on a sort of broiler arranged over the boiler. The day was warm, and I understood at once why the machine was called a "steamer. " I felt like the nigger who used to squat on the safety-valve on the Mississippi boats. I amused myself by watching the steam- gage and wondering how long it would take me to come down if anything went wrong. The exhaust steam went up my trousers' leg and I felt like the squid, which scientists say envelops itself in a cloud or fog of its own making in order to conceal itself from its enemies. My IS 2 A Few Remarks friend, meanwhile, explained the mechan- ism, but I told him if I had to become a master mechanic it would pay me better to go and run the Kaiser Wilhelm. The consensus of opinion seemed to be that the gasoline machine was the thing. There was power, simple and direct ! It ran by a series of explosions. That ap- pealed to me at once. That's the way my hotel on Park Avenue has been run during the past year — by a series of explosions of dynamite by the tunnel people, and a series of explosions of profanity on the part of myself and my few remaining boarders. Every auto I thought of buying all my friends assured me was no good, and in the light of subsequent experiences I guess they were right. Finally, on my own responsibility, I bought that lovely lobster- pink creation in which I may be seen 'most On the Automobile 153 any pleasant day now running merrily through the Park or street and anon sitting reposefully while my chauffeur, assisted by the populace, explores the vitals of the machine, looking for trouble. I remember when I was a boy I saw and admired at Barnum's Museum a working model of an engine all made of glass, but I never dreamed I should own one. I am getting proud of my machine. I think it holds the record for having traveled fewer miles in a given time than any other yet devised. My engine will break when standing motionless on the barn floor, simply through the power of gravitation. It is operated by a skilled mechanic and costs me as much per month as it would to run the Corsair. But it has one merit. I never wander so far from my own fireside but that I can easily walk back. I have worn out six sets of hinges in the hood 154 A Few Remarks peering at the engine to see what is busted. I used to get up and help the chauffeur to look, until one day when we were both hidden behind the hood a sneak carried off my fur robes. Now I just sit back and listen to the jeers of the populace and sigh to think of the happy times gone by when I used to travel on the street-cars and get to my destination on the same day. RULES FOR SUCCESS IN THE HOTEL BUSINESS RULES FOR SUCCESS IN THE HOTEL BUSINESS WHAT a change has come over the business in the last few years ! I read, not long ago, of a gentleman who, returning home in the still watches of the night, found a man slumbering sweetly on the marble floor of the vestibule, his head pillowed on the woven-wire door-mat. When aroused, he mumbled: "Didn't I leave word not to be called till eight o'clock? This is the last time I'll ever sleep in the Ashland House." He was one of the old-fashioned guests. They didn't expect too much. Nowadays, if you lodge a man for a dollar, he comes down and expostulates if he hasn't got a hand-painted piano in his room. 157 158 A Few Remarks It behooves us old-timers to get a " quick Waterbury movement" on us, if we want to keep up with the procession. We can't all have buildings like the Savoy and the Waldorf and the Holland ; but if we can't have the best hotel, let's have the best hotel we can. There are lots of old- fashioned folks left in the world. Lots of people wouldn't feel at home in the Waldorf. I don't believe I would myself, although I'd like to get a chance to try. I've often thought that when we got a real good year again I'd save and scrimp and deny my family the necessities of life, and when I had accumulated a sufficient sum I would go down to the Waldorf and spend one night in that $4,000 bed. I would stretch myself luxuriously amid its silken coverings, and I would say to myself, "Well, am I in it?" But, ah me, this is but a dream. If the royal families keep Rules for Hotel Business 159 on putting up hotels, I am more likely to wake up some morning over in the hotel men's dormitory at the poorfarm. And speaking of soap reminds me that, in my opinion, the mainspring of success in the hotel business is soap; not Lubin's Cashmere Bouquet, but plain yaller soap, with plenty of Hibernian elbow grease " on the side." Cleanliness is away ahead of godliness in our business. When a guest goes into a hotel dining-room, and has to engage in a hand-to-hand struggle with a cockroach for the possession of the meal he is paying for, it has a tendency to make him morose and dissatisfied. And it should be a fundamental principle with hotel men never to let a guest escape dissatisfied. Should you inadvertently chance upon a guest in the act of absorbing some trifling article of silverware or bric-a-brac, 160 A Few Remarks or an eight-day clock, or a pair of blankets, with true delicacy turn your back and affect not to have seen him, lest he be embarrassed, bearing in mind that many travelers take an innocent delight in gathering about them little souvenirs to serve as pleasant reminders of their visits to hotels. It is always a source of gratifi- cation to me when I reflect upon the hundreds of happy homes which I have helped to beautify, and the many festive boards throughout the land which are adorned with linen and flashing silver inscribed with the beautiful motto, " Grand Union Hotel." The custom common in hotel wash- rooms of attaching the hair-brushes and combs to the walls by means of chains is to be deprecated. It is far better to allow these implements to roam at large, for it is galling to the proud spirit of a free-born Rules for Hotel Business 161 American to have to perform his toilet accompanied by the clanking of chains, and it also puts him to the inconvenience and expense of bringing a monkey wrench with him, in case he should be seized with an uncontrollable desire to add a brush and comb to his collection. The average guest has about as much regard for the rights of a landlord as a tomcat for the sanctity of the marriage rite, and anything in a hotel which is not screwed to the floor is usually considered in the light of legiti- mate prey. And knowing this little eccen- tricity, we must humour it. When I first plunged into this business I had a foolish notion that there should be rules for the conduct of a hotel, and that guests should be expected to observe them. In consequence, I made some bad breaks. I remember once when a nice, benevolent- looking old gentleman had registered, and 162 A Few Remarks was about to go to his room, I stepped up to him, and with an engaging smile I said : ' ' My dear sir, pardon me for addressing you, but from the hayseed which still lingers lovingly in your whiskers, and the fertilizer which yet adheres to your cheap though serviceable army brogans, I hazard the guess that you are an agriculturist and unaccustomed to the rules to be observed in one of New York's palatial caravansaries. Permit me, therefore, to suggest that upon retiring to your sumptuous $i apartment you refrain from blowing out the gas, as is the time-honoured custom of the residents of the outlying districts, but turn the key, thus." He glared at me, and went his way, and I noticed that the clerk, who had been standing by, had broken out into a cold sweat. "Why," said he, "that man is a United Rules for Hotel Business 163 States Senator from Kansas; didn't you notice his whiskers ? He expected to stop at the Manhattan, but chancing to see one of their advertisements, observed that the Grand Central Depot was attached to the house, and he was afraid the locomotives would break his rest, so he came down to this sequestered nook so as to be quiet, and now you have driven him away." " It makes no difference to me whether he is a Senator or not," I replied ; " I am no believer in class distinctions. We cannot afford to give any man a room for $1 and have him absorb $2 worth of illuminating gas. The veriest tyro at financiering would know that to pursue such business methods would eventually deplete the gold reserve." You can't be too particular nowadays with guests. Whatever they want, give it to them. Whatever else you may be, be 164 A Few Remarks obliging to your guests. I read a story in The Hotel Gazette last week which illus- trates the obliging landlord of to-day. A gentleman was stopping at a little seaside resort kept by a German. One day the guest went into the ocean to bathe and got beyond his depth. He couldn't swim, and as he struggled he gave a loud cry for help. The German landlord, hearing the cry, came out on the veranda, and saw his guest just disappearing beneath the wave, and as he sank he threw up one despairing hand with ringers outstretched. The land- lord went back into the house and brought out five beers. ON POLICEMEN ON POLICEMEN I AM proud to have been invited here, and glad to learn that you recognize a good thing when you see it and are willing to push it along. I read to-day in a Boston paper, under the head- ing of "Mining News," that Coppers have taken a big drop. I have known some New York coppers who wouldn't take a drop if the Statue of Liberty fell on them. In fact, I have never heard of a New York policeman who would take a drop, and I've kept a bar for twenty years. But all the same, I'm glad you've dropped to me. I have always admired the New York police, and consider them a fine body of men, and I love to see them enjoying 167 j68 A Few Remarks themselves. Only to-day, as I walked down Fifth Avenue and noted here and there groups of policemen chatting to- gether, and apparently so merry and well-fed and free from care, while rural visitors were freely purchasing gold bricks from long-lost relatives with dyed mustaches, I could not but think that were I not already a hotel-keeper I would like to be a policeman. And, after all, our trades are a good deal alike, because while we landlords take in the public, make all sorts of charges, and give them the combined comforts of home and the club, you also take in the public on all sorts of charges and give them, if not the comforts of home, at least the benefits of the club; and that is no joke. But you have one advantage over us. When you take in a boarder you generally On Policemen 169 know how long he is to be with you, and if he has any kick coming about southern exposure or noise from the elevator or the odour of cooking he keeps it to himself. But the self -convicted criminals who stop with us never hesitate to express an adverse opinion, nor to leave on slight provocation; so that the landlord's lot is not a happy one. But, joking aside, where is there a police force like ours, and where is there another city where a man or woman can go anywhere, at any time, day or night, without molestation? It's curious, though, how many more policemen it takes to keep order at the Polo Grounds when there is a match on between the leading nines than when one is being con- tested between two of the tail-enders. And when Terry McGovern goes up against the "Coon," dozens of cops are required to 17° A Few Remarks preserve peace, but when two dubs knock the stuffing out of each other you can't find a bluecoat with a searchlight; which goes to prove that our police have good taste as well as courage. Speaking of courage, too, it takes nerve for a policeman four feet in diameter to stand between two cable-cars three feet apart going in opposite directions at ten miles an hour. Why police captains always select the fattest policemen to stand between cars I never could under- stand, unless it is that they don't want the cars to get too close together ; or else they have to keep their thin men up at the Heine fountain to sprint after people who are trying to remove souvenirs from that work of art with the aid of a dark lantern and a pick-ax. AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS PERHAPS you think after-dinner speakers, like game and cheese, improve with age; but even game and cheese can't be kept in cold storage too long without getting a little decollette. You are all familiar with the poem from "Mother Goose" beginning: "Little Tommy Tucker Sang for his supper." Well, Tommy was in luck. For, having sang for his supper, it is fair to presume that he got it and was able to eat it with a relish. But we latter-day Tommy Tuckers get our supper first, when our speech is sticking in our throats so we can't eat, and then have to sing for it afterward. If we could only speak first 173 174 A Few Remarks and eat afterward, how we would relish our victuals. There are three species of guest. One, the fortunate being who is invited solely to eat, drink and be merry at some other fellow's expense. Another the gifted being who travels on his shape and who by reason of his greatness is invited to throw a halo of respectability over the occasion. And last, the distinguished yet unhappy orator, who has to work his passage. To the former I present my felicitations; to the latter my heartfelt sympathy. Years ago, in one of my rare lucid inter- vals, I made a speech which, surprising as it may seem, was regarded as a gem. Up to that time I had been a merry, laughter-loving youth, and carking care rested lightly upon my clustering curls. Now look at me. Gaze upon this coun- After-Dinner Speakers 175 tenance, "Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and this wasted form, filled with high resolve and pepsin tablets, and pause ere it is too late. Become an opium eater if you will, a drunkard, or sink lower still and become a cigarette smoker if you must, but never, never contract the after-dinner speaking habit. After-dinner oratory is a curious busi- ness — painful, but apparently necessary. Severe on you, but worse on us. To see us up here bursting with suppressed eloquence, you might think we have a cinch, but such is not the case. I know of no class of men who work harder and get work oftener than us orators. Some few orators really enjoy speaking, but they are men without any sense of shame. Chauncey Depew says that he fairly dotes on after- dinner speaking. As for me, I am free to say that I would rather be the humblest rj 6 A Few Remarks bank president among you, and sit down and relish my victuals, than be up here in the fierce light which beats upon the head table, and get my dinner for nothing and have lovely ladies nearly tumble out of the boxes as they hang upon my slightest word. The idea generally obtains that all an after-dinner speaker has to do is to assume a dress suit and an engaging smile, rise up when called upon, and captivate an audi- ence with wit or eloquence, born of the moment and inspired by the surround- ings. This is largely the fault of the speakers themselves, who spend most of their allotted time jollying the listeners into the idea that the call is unexpected and the speech spontaneous. This is not only untrue, but it robs the orator of the credit which is his due. How much more honest it would be if he would After-Dinner Speakers 177 admit that for one or two long, sickening weeks his speech has been rankling in his vitals; and that for 'most as long his innocent wife and children have been made wretched by having to listen to rehearsals thereof ; that he has aroused suspicions as to his sanity by muttering it in public places, and has been shadowed by the police as he patrolled lonely streets at night address- ing imaginary after-dinner audiences. Some bold diners-out have recently tried to break over the ancient custom of after-dinner speaking by substituting for us orators, who make a specialty of clothing our thoughts in beautiful and felicitous phrases, soubrettes who, it is said, do not bother about clothing at all. It is awful to think that we are to be thus brought directly into competition with living pictures and skirt-dancers and Little Egypts. What show would Horace 178 A Few Remarks Porter have if he had to go up against the couchee couchee ! And even Joe Choate couldn't expect to draw against such drawers as the Barrison Sisters. Where would I come in, arrayed in my simple dress suit and unpretentious jag, against Cissie Fitzgerald in her naughty wink and openwork tights ! And what possible chance would our Chauncey have — peach though he be — against those over- ripe Cherry Sisters ! Why, he'd simply be fruit for 'em. However, let a man keep at after-dinner speaking long enough and he will get softening of the brain, and either land in the Cabinet or some big public office, or in a lunatic asylum. Mr. Depew landed in the United States Senate, but it was a toss-up where he should be sent. Horace Porter is Minister to France, Joe Choate is tossing verbal nosegays at King Edward, several After-Dinner Speakers 179 gentlemen present this evening have got lucrative jobs under the government ; but cheer up ! Me and St. Clair McKelway are still at large. ON THE GAME OF GOLF AN ADDRESS MADE AT THE DINNER OF THE DYKER MEADOW GOLF CLUB OF BROOKLYN. N. Y. ON THE GAME OF GOLF f" HAD hoped to meet my rival, Walter J. Travis, the champion golfer, here this evening, so as to take an oratorical fall out of him. I think he defaulted, fearing I would have him down. I think I am better at bawling a golf address than at addressing a golf ball. He and I are excellent examples of absolutely different styles, each model in its way. The peculiarity of his style con- sists in his exasperating habit of always getting his ball into the cup in one stroke less than his adversary. My style, on the contrary, is of the "After you, my dear Alphonse, " type. He is self-taught, defies all precepts, examples, and traditions, and by methods peculiarly his own generally manages to 183 184 A Few Remarks get there. I represent the combined efforts and wisdom of many masters and much literature, but never really cut loose until the match is over and I am licked, and find myself in the nineteenth hole, setting them up as heretofore for the assembled multitude. To improve, if possible, my game I visited Scotland this summer. Scotland is about as near Heaven as a golfer may ever hope to get. The language engen- dered by the royal and ancient game is such as to preclude all hope of a cool and peaceful hereafter, as you perhaps know. If I had my choice of a future life, and it lay between the golden streets and the gates of pearl and jasper and the St. Andrews links, it wouldn't take me long to decide. Bad as my work is with the iron, I believe my performance on the harp would be even less satisfactory. On the Game of Golf 185 I admire our little friend, Andy Carnegie, for going back to settle in Scotland. It certainly has Pittsburg lashed to the mast. I did not visit Andrew while there, owing to circumstances over which I had no control, but I am told he has a neat, if unostentatious, place at Skibo, advantage- ously located on the corner of Easy Street, where he enjoys the fruits of his labours as well as some of mine. Far be it from me to call undue atten- tion to this gentleman who so shrinks from public notice, but I must give him credit for giving up work at so early an age and retiring on a modest competence, instead of struggling along, as me and John D. Rockefeller do, to amass a vast fortune, when we might better devote our declining years to perfecting our follow through. After the strenuous life he has led it must be a great joy to retire to his moun- 1 86 A Few Remarks tain fastness, don his kilts, take his bag- pipes under his arm, gird on his claymore, lower the portcullis, and sally forth upon the heather "in maiden meditation fancy free" to scatter aphorisms and public libraries broadcast over the land that gave him birth and nothing else worth men- tioning. Of course, I made straightway for St. Andrews. It is not true that the town was named after Mr. Carnegie. It was there, history says, that St. Regulus was shipwrecked with the bones of St. Andrew, who thereupon became the patron saint of Scotland. It does not say why Reg. was traveling with the bones, but perhaps he was an end man in a minstrel troupe, or he may have been playing cards on shipboard and had occasion to go back to the boneyard. Anyhow, he had a few bones with him when he landed, and as the On the Game of Golf 187 place is rather expensive it was a wise precaution. The chief industry of St. Andrews con- sists of hitting golf balls by day and high balls by night, and by constant practice the natives have become very proficient at both pastimes. The Scotch are famous for possessing a peculiar form of dry humour. Some say it comes from eating too much oatmeal, and that may be the reason why so many of them are scratch men. I noticed it myself while there. I don't think I was any more humorous than usual, but I was much drier. I was dry all the time. For all I was so dry, Scotland impressed me as possessing a very damp, water- logged kind of climate. If the natives knew enough to go in when it rained they would get very little outdoor exercise. I am told that the only water consumed 1 88 A Few Remarks there by the adult male population is ab- sorbed through the pores. Travellers not inured to the rigours of the climate are advised by the guide-books to partake of a little stimulant occasionally — say every twenty minutes. By this simple precaution pneumonia may be avoided and a delicious sensation of warmth and delirium tremens imparted. The guide- book further says that whisky taken in small quantities, diluted, will be found a good drink for pedestrians. That did not coincide with my experience. Instead of aiding, I found that it interfered with pedestrianism. But perhaps I diluted mine too freely. The Scotch pride them- selves on their neatness. Even their whisky they take neat. Scotland is called the land of cakes. Their cake, however, is nothing like ours. It is a mysterious composition known as On the Game of Golf 189 a scone. A scone is a cross between a dog-biscuit and a porous plaster. It is composed of sawdust and water baked in the ashes, and is said to be very nutri- tious if you can get it down. To an early diet of scones may be attributed the hardiness of the Scotch race. Only the strong survive. The weak choke to death in infancy. Every golfer who has not been to Scot- land should go, even if his family have to be denied some of the necessities of life. You will never fully appreciate the de- lights of the game until you play there, amid lovely surroundings, on perfect turf, with pluperfect caddies, and surrounded by players who play with a calm and temperate joy, instead of with the frenzied haste, extreme irritability, and appalling language too often in evidence on our side of the pond. HOTEL SUICIDES HOTEL SUICIDES I REMEMBER hearing Jim Breslin, at one of our banquets, describe his early trials and tribulations in the hotel business — how he began at the bottom of the ladder and worked his way up. Now, the difference between Jim Breslin and myself is, that w T hile he began at the bottom of the ladder and slowly worked his way up, I began at the top of the ladder and have been rapidly working my way downward ever since. But the ladder I began at the top of was the step- ladder, and the way of it was this : When I first embarked in the hotel business I said to dear old Garrison, "I want to learn this business thoroughly" (I was young enough to have a childish notion 193 194 A Few Remarks that a hotel man ought to be conversant with the details of business). Well, Mr. Garrison looked me all over and took in the full details of my Gothic style of ar- chitecture, and he said: " Nature has not been very lavish to you in the matter of fleshly charms, but she has evidently intended you for some purpose, and in my opinion that purpose is to perfectly adapt you to going up a step-ladder, crawling over a transom, and opening the door, in cases of suicide." Well, naturally I was dazzled at the bril- liant prospect which I saw opening before me, and I flung myself into the work with all the abandon of youth; and I think I may say, without being accused of undue vanity, that when it comes to crawling over transoms there is no man in the pro- fession who is my peer. There are men in this room, famous all over the country Hotel Suicides *95 as hotel-keepers, but none of them could ever hope to achieve distinction at crawl- ing over transoms. And speaking of suicides (I always wax eloquent when I get on this subject, for it is one with which I am thoroughly con- versant), it is strange that, with all the new and beautiful hotels which have of late been erected, our old place still continues to be the favoured resort for that class of trade. Indeed, I sometimes think that these beautiful palaces rather boom the industry, for when a man has spent a day or two at the Holland, or the Waldorf, the Plaza or the Savoy, and has received and paid his bill, he has nothing left to live for ; and what more natural than that : should come into our place and blow his brains out? We have never catered to this class of trade. We have never written letters to prospective suicides at 1 9 6 A Few Remarks other hotels, inviting them to come with us at reduced rates; and yet, when a man feels that it is time for him to make a cut, and shuffle off his mortal coil, it seems perfectly natural for him to drift into our hotel, unostentatious though it be. It is a comparatively easy class of trade to satisfy. They do not stop to inquire whether the plumbing is modern or antique. They do not ask whether their rooms are decorated in the style of the First Empire or the Seventh Ward. Give them a good six-foot gas-burner, about fifteen hundred feet of illuminating gas at $1.00 a thousand, and a few uninter- rupted moments, and they are content. Not long since I came into my office one morning and found a gentleman there simply boiling with rage. It seems that he had just been married — indeed, had spent the first night of his marital Hotel Suicides 197 career under our roof. On arising in the morning he had been told by some busy- body that the room which he occupied had, on the previous day, been occupied by two persons who had committed suicide therein. He was very indignant. I endeavoured to pacify him. I said: "My dear sir, you would scarcely expect us to put a silver plate on the door, and silver handles, and consecrate the room to the memory of the dear departed. We are conducting a hotel, not a cemetery." But he was very indignant, and made remarks which were painful to one of my shrinking, sensitive organization. I always have a tender spot in my heart toward newspaper men. What would hotels do without them? Whenever we have a fire or a robbery or a suicide, or are wrongfully named as co-respondent, 198 A Few Remarks who is the first to fly to us in the hour of our affliction? The newspaper man. And he proceeds to give us a big send-off. I say "send-off," for it generally has the effect of sending off a lot of star boarders. I once had a peculiar dazzling suicide at my place in which two persons quenched the vital spark and destroyed a new Wilton carpet simultaneously. This acci- dent was splendidly written up in one of our leading journals, with lovely portraits of the principals (evolved from the imagi- nation of the artist). My portrait was also printed, together with a brief synopsis of my life. I shall never forget my wife's exclamation of delight when the article was shown her, and her simple, unaffected joy and pride at seeing my picture side by side with the deceased was tiuly touch- ing. It is needless to say that for a long time thereafter our place was simply Hotel Suicides 199 thronged with suicides, and all without costing us a cent. So I never let an opportunity pass to say a good word for newspaper men. NEW HOTELS NEW HOTELS NEW YORK has become the greatest hotel centre in the world. We have more hotels than London, Paris and Berlin combined. In a few years a private house will be a novelty. People are awakening to the fact that fifty families can live under one roof, with one kitchen, one housekeeper, one laundry, and one dining-room, cheaper and better than they can live in fifty houses, each with its kitchen, its laundry, its housekeeper, and its dining-room. Our business has sprung from one of minor importance into one of the greatest of the industries. There are twice as many hotels in New York to-day as there were a year ago, and they are 203 204 A Few Remarks being put up by the dozen, by the score, by the hundred. One is being erected near me which they say will be twenty stories high, but you can't believe all the stories you hear. Its proprietors kindly say that it is to accommodate the overflow from the Grand Union. I notify them now, however, that if any boarders overflow from the Grand Union it will be over my dead body. A few years ago fine modern hotels in New York were rare. Nowadays fine hotels are rather overdone. Just look at the new hotels that have gone up ! And just look at the old ones that have "gone up"! Isn't it awful — especially if you don't happen to have one of the new ones ? Enter one of these modern palaces. Go into the restaurant (if you've got the price). Note the lavish decoration; the New Hotels 205 beautiful furniture covered with rich tapestries and costly chattel mort- gages; the heavy carpets into which the foot as well as more or less soup and gravy sinks noiselessly; the softly shaded lights; the Hungarian band setting your teeth on edge so you can chew the steak with comparative ease; waiters moving noise- lessly about, skilfully inserting their thumbs into the soup and deftly dropping lobster salad down the back of your neck ; at the tables are seated lovely women, chatting gaily and sizing up each other's costumes, while their escorts, in cute little swallow-tail coats, vie with one another to see who can spend the most time and the least money. It is a scene of delirious joy and beauty, and as the old hotel- keeper returns to his plain back-number hotel, and takes up again his interrupted labours, a shuddering sigh wells up from A Few Remarks his midst and a scalding tear falls upon the pile of bonds from which he is wearily cutting the coupons. And now we are to have a woman's hotel! That will fill a long-felt want. We all have a few lady boarders we would like to recommend — ladies with strong minds and weak appetites, the kind that send for a waiter and order a pot of tea, a package of canary-bird seed and a hot flat- iron and "don't be all day about it, please." What a pleasure it would be for a man who was ready and anxious to die to run such an Adamless Eden ! With what harmony will the inmates mingle together ! Just imagine the conversation which will ensue after the first lady with peroxide hair comes down to breakfast in a pink Mother Hubbard ! But, seriously, what is to become of the older hotels if they don't stop putting up New Hotels new ones? It is a question I hate to dwell on, but I must dwell on something ! One comforting thing for us old-timers is that in these new hotels the prices rather dwarf the buildings. It is said that their bills are so high no boarders can ever jump them; and they do not fear suicides, for when the guest is told the price of his rooms it takes his breath away so he can't blow out the gas. If the Tower of Babel were to make its appearance in New York to-day, one could imagine the Waldorf and the Netherland and other giants saying to each other, 'Who is this little sa wed-off that has come to town?" There are nice things about tall hotels. The guests get fine air. When a person of moderate means stops at one of them and pays for his room, he hasn't much money left, and naturally he looks for good, 208 A Few Remarks wholesome, nutritious air. He is entitled to the best. Then, the rooms are small and cozy — there isn't even room for suspicion in them, and that is a burden lifted from the hotel man's mind. One lady complained to the manager of the loftiest of these palaces that there was no place for a trunk in her room. "That's all right, madam," said he, " after you've paid your bill you'll have no further use for a trunk. ' ' The advantages, however, are not all for the boarders. I was told of one hotel- keeper who, during a business depression, ensconced himself in a room on the seven- teenth floor, and when creditors beset him said to his employees : " Hang out our banners on the outer walls; The cry is still they come." Callers who looked like collectors would New Hotels 209 be told that the elevators were not running and invited to walk up. When they got up, with decreased breath and enlarged heart, a polite clerk would inform them that the proprietor had just stepped down and invited them to call again. After that they would retire and charge up the account to profit and loss. One fellow — I think it was Bob Brown — walked up and up and up, and when he finally reached the office he knocked on the door, entered and said, "Is God in?" The idea of building the Astoria was undoubtedly suggested to Mr. Astor by that now historic tramp who slept in his spare room. It must have awakened in John Jacob's breast a wild yearning to keep boarders. I suppose he said to him- self: "The glory of my family was begun by the buying and selling of skins on the borders. I will perpetuate the family 210 A Few Remarks glory and see what I can do in the way of skins on the boarders myself. I will put up a house so big and fine that Cousin Bill will think he's running a fifteen-cent lodging-house next door." And lo ! Jacob fell asleep, "and he dreamed and beheld a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the four hundred ascended and descended upon it." (I believe I missed my vocation when my parents refused to let me enter the theological seminary.) Meanwhile, we old-timers try to make things as agreeable as possible for our respective receivers, realizing that progress is the order of the day and that the old must give way to the new, and living on the memories of the glorious past when there were boarders enough to go around. SOME MORE ABOUT AUTOMOBILES SOME MORE ABOUT AUTOMOBILES r FEEL somewhat embarrassed at being here again this year, and feel it due to myself to state that I did not come without a violent struggle. The seventy-horse- power gasoline chairman of your com- mittee on chin-music came and camped in my office, and as he is not provided with a muffler, I finally made up my mind it was better to sacrifice my convictions rather than my ear-drums, and so, " saying I would ne'er consent, consented." Not but what I am flattered at being asked to address so distinguished a gather- ing of millionaires — (I do not use the term in an offensive sense, but I know from ex- perience that only us milHonaires can be automobilists) — but I told you last year everything I knew about automobiling 213 214 A- Few Remarks and a good deal I didn't know, and this year I have nothing left to say, and I will now proceed to say it. Some people think it's a cinch to be up here among the wax-works, trying to look the part, and getting free food and drink, so-called. The head table is usually adorned by men who are asked to speak and don't want to, and men who want to speak and aren't asked to, so that all hands are miserable. We are all entitled to sympathy, but only get envy. Those of you who were sufficiently in possession of your faculties at the time may remember that last year I described a ten- jackass-power lobster-coloured crea- tion which, in a moment of temporary aberration of mind, I paid out my good money for. It was described in the ad- vertisement as a smooth, swift, silent, and powerful vehicle, so simple in its mechan- Some More About Automobiles 215 ism that a babe in arms could easily ma- nipulate it. The only thing smooth about it was the fellow that wrote the adver- tisement, and the only thing easy about it was the gifted orator who is now address- ing you. You will be pleased to learn that I have that machine still, although it's no fault of mine. The only original part of it remain- ing is the horn. I haven't had to use that much. I don't believe in blowing my own horn. I only use it when there is imminent danger of somebody running into me from astern, and to keep cows from jumping into the tonneau and biting me. Well, as I remarked, with all its faults I have it still. I have tried in vain to dispose of it at private sale, by public auction, by trade, gift, raffle, grab-bag, and fish-pond. I have left it by the roadside, 216 A Few Remarks unattended, for long periods, hoping some poor fool would come and steal it. I have freely tendered it to friends, enemies, relatives, old ladies' homes, poor-houses, gold cures, and lunatic asylums, and it has always been refused with scorn and vituper- ation. It cleaveth unto me like a porous plaster, and, like the Old Man of the Sea, it is impossible to shake, and so I am still compelled to figure it among my liabilities, and have come to regard it in the light of a penance for my sins. And yet there have been moments — rare moments — when I have experienced the keenest delight from its use. Some- times, when it has been returned to me, fresh from the factory, having been en- tirely reconstructed, and I have succeeded in getting my wife to join me in putting another mortgage on our humble home, it has run smoothly and swiftly for several Some More About Automobiles 217 moments before disintegrating. At such times I have experienced an exhilaration such as the bird must feel, when with motionless wing it drops with lightning speed earthward from the far heights of the blue empyrean. And then a town constable steps out from behind a telegraph pole and hales me to the nearest magistrate, and I have to give up twenty. The constable swears that I was running at least seventy miles an hour and had been constantly doing so for weeks, de- spite frequent warnings ; that when arrested I was completely surrounded by school- houses, places of worship, post-offices, and coloured orphan asylums; and that the entire landscape was smeared with signs forbidding automobilists to proceed at a rate of over one mile an hour. Before he gets through I begin to think I am Barney Oldfield on Bullet No. 2. 2i8 A Few Remarks I then swear on a stack of Bibles that my machine is incapable of attaining a speed of over eight miles an hour, that I was running at the time on the hill-climb- ing gear, with both brakes on, that my gas was cut off, and was mighty poor gas at that, that my spark was working on half time, that my oil was all gummed up, and that I was riding behind a funeral pro- cession, and was having difficulty in keep- ing up. My chauffeur and guests also perjure themselves. But nobody ever believes an automobilist — I don't myself — and so the magistrate, licking his chops, soaks it to me, for the country magistrate, like death, "loves a shining mark." I was pleased to note at the show that we are beginning to build better motors. It is a shame that we, a nation of mechan- ics, should allow ourselves to be outbuilt by the French and Germans. Some More About Automobiles 219 We have been building too cheaply. Unless a motor is very good, it is no good. Our makers have been turning out lovely cars, glittering with paint, varnish, and brass, and fitted up as luxuriously as Cleopatra's barge. And then if they had any money left they would conceal a cute little engine somewhere about — a kind of cross between a cuckoo-clock and an ice- cream freezer, with the vices of each and the virtues of neither. What is the use of a body fitted out in the style of Louis Quinze when the cylinders are made in the style of tomato-cans? As soon as these feeble aenemic motors get warmed up, the lead bushings dissolve in tears and the lead-gears gnash their teeth and dis- integrate, and with a gasp and a gurgle the poor little engine goes out of business. And all because we are trying de- partment-store bargain -counter marked- 220 A Few Remarks down - from - meet - me - at - the - fountain methods. I tell you the best is none too good, and if a man can't afford a good one he can afford to wait until he can afford a good one. NEW YORK FOR CONVENTIONS NEW YORK FOR CONVENTIONS FORTUNATELY, for me, landlords are not expected to be intellectual. Brains are not required in our business. All we have to do is to open our hotels and the boarders will tell us how to run 'em. We landlords hope to have this National Democratic Convention held in New York. First, because we believe it is the best place for it. Second, for the honour of our metropolis, of which we are loyal citizens. Third, because it is to be held at a time of year when our great hotels are well-nigh empty, and it would give us a chance to make an honest dollar — with the accent on the honest — and like- wise give us an opportunity to entertain and care for the delegates and visitors in 223 224 A Few Remarks a way novel in the history of national conventions. I will not attempt to recite the glories of New York. That has already been done by tongue of silver and by lung of brass; and besides, you have "all been there before, many a time, " and probably know more about the city than we do. You have already heard and have still to hear the most dazzling accounts of the beauties and glories of other cities. But of what avail are all of these beauties and glories to the weary delegate if he must spend his nights fitfully slumbering upon a billiard table or uneasily tossing within the narrow confines of a hotel bathtub ? I admit that there may be some delegates who would not be seriously injured by spending a night or two in a bathtub. I understand that the Honourable Chauncey M. Depew slept in New York for Conventions 225 one at Minneapolis, and I presume it was of benefit to him, but the ordinary- delegate naturally prefers to "wrap the drapery of his couch about him and lie down to pleasant dreams," and you can't blame him. To such I would say New York is the only city in the land that can give every visitor to a national convention a com- fortable bed at night. Our motto is " Excelsior, " but we don't force our motto into our hair mattresses. "Sleep sweetly in this quiet room, O thou, whoe'er thou art, And let no mournful yesterday Disturb thy peaceful heart." This sentiment doubtless sounds strained to delegates who have been accustomed to sleeping four in a bed and two in the bureau at conventions, but New York is a big town and has big hotels and lots of 'em. 226 A Few Remarks New York has more hotel accommoda- tions than the cities of Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis combined. Lest I be accused of boasting, I will not dwell upon their merits, but content myself with the modest assertion that they are the best and the finest in the world. We have fine hotels for fine people, good hotels for good people, plain hotels for plain people, and some bum hotels for bums; but we don't expect the latter to be patronized during the convention. Chicago has a sign outside of her head- quarters which reads, "Most of the dele- gates passed through Chicago on their way here." Can you blame 'em? We have to pass through lots of unpleasant things in this life — teething, mumps, measles — but why harp upon it? It may be true that most of the delegates have gone through Chicago, but it is New York for Conventions 227 equally true that Chicago, a number of times, has gone through most of the delegates. We have heard some very glowing description of western cities, here and in the lobbies, and especially the most entrancing tales of the beauties of the Union Depot of St. Louis. I spent two days in St. Louis once, during one of those crisp, frosty spells which they describe as being so prev- alent there in the month of July, and when I got to the Union Depot, bound for New York, I admit that it was the most beautiful and welcome sight that ever gladdened my eyes. Now, we have a number of depots in New York (most of which are located in Hoboken, New Jersey), but were they as fair as Aladd n's palace you would not enjoy seeing them, for your heart would be 228 A Few Remarks heavy at the thought of leaving our beautiful city by the sea. The editor of the Washington Post gets a little hysterical about New York in an editorial this morning. He says "navi- gating the streets of New York is as diffi- cult as ascending the Matterhorn. " I am afraid the editor got lured into that broad thoroughfare of ours ' ' where they do such things and they say such things, ' ' and found it too narrow for him. Come down to salt water, gentlemen, and hold the next Democratic National Convention. We are accustomed to handling large gatherings, and we have yet to hear a complaint of extortion against a New York landlord. You will find us hail fellows, men of fair dealing, to be relied upon. We make you this pledge, and we will live up to it to the letter. And when you are ready to return to New York for Conventions 229 your homes (which you will do with regret) you will sigh with the poet Shenstone: "Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn." IMPRESSIONS OF BOSTON IMPRESSIONS OF BOSTON EVERY time I get an invitation to Boston, my wife says to me, "Why do you take that long, tiresome trip when you can stay right here at home and lay in your winter stock of dyspepsia without its costing you a cent ? " To which I reply, "My dear, I consider it an honour to be asked and a pleasure to attend, and I return with the proud consciousness that I have given the residents of Boston an intellectual treat." I never refuse an invitation to come and enjoy your hospitality, and sit up here at the head table with your Mayors and Governors, and Attorney-Generals, and Postmasters. I like to mingle on equal terms with men of this class, just to show 233 234 A Few Remarks them I'm not stuck up. I find them good fellows, and when they have assimilated sufficient alcohol to thaw them out they become real genial — especially the Gov- ernors. But afterward, when one has occasion to look them up to get a pardon for some relative who is doing time, one generally finds that a severe frost has supervened. I love to ride over that magnificent highway of travel which connects Boston and New York, and pay seven dollars for the privilege of sitting in a stuffy palace car of the vintage of 1843, and eat for lunch Chicken a la Marengo canned in the same year. This road has two virtues, however. One virtue is, that its Boston terminus is immediately opposite the bar- room of the Thorndikc. The other virtue is, that its New York terminus is immedi- ately opposite the barroom of a hotel Impressions of Boston the name of which has escaped me for the moment. I believe much of the success of these two hotels is due to the fact that riding on this railroad has a tendency to drive men to drink. And then, I truly love Boston ! There is an air of chaste refinement and culture about it which appeals to my thoughtful and poetic nature; and as I walk your tortuous streets and get jostled off the side- walks by your impetuous excess female population, and ever and anon get run over by one of your trolley-cars, I feel that I am treading the paths trod by Webster, by Emerson, by Lowell, by Holmes and by Longfellow, and my heart gives a great leap when I think what me and these men have done to add to the knowledge and culture of Boston, and of the world. Sometimes T am so overcome by this thought that I feel obliged to go into 236 A Few Remarks the Touraine and stifle my emotion by quaffing a foaming beaker of sarsa- parilla. I love to visit your cute little city, so replete with trolley-cars and historic interest, and to take an hour to stroll through your business centre and look in the shop windows to see if anything displayed therein has been disturbed since I was here last. I love to visit Faneuil Hall, the Cradle of Liberty, where our forefathers carved out this great Republic, and then go down in the base- ment and see the good fellows who carve out steaks and chops for the hotels. I understand that you Bostonians pronounce this "Funnel" Hall, and alter I paid my visit to the butchers and took all the drinks they poured into me, I could understand why you called it Funnel Hall. I also enjoyed visiting the Old South Impressions of Boston 237 Church and Young's Hotel, and other Revolutionary relics. It's marvelous to what perfection the modern city hotel has come. Your Touraine is beautiful ! Every detail carried out so perfectly — even to an electric apparatus for heating curling- irons. When I stopped there and found I could heat my curling-irons without standing on a chair and holding them in the gas, I felt that life had nothing more to offer. But after all, I do not believe they are needed, for when the guest learns the price of his room it will make his hair curl without artificial aid. The last time I was here I was greatly impressed by the gorgeous coats-of-arms or crests which you hotel men all sport on your stationery. Somehow broiled scrod or liver and bacon taste more aristocratic and recherche when there is a fine crest 238 A Few Remarks glittering on the bill of fare. I went home determined to invest in a coat-of-arms, and consulted a College of Heraldry at once. The boss asked me if we had a coat-of-arms in my family. I was forced to confess that we had struggled along as best we might without one. He asked me if I or my family had ever done any- thing in particular. I assured him we had never been detected doing anything for which we could not prove an alibi. Finally, however, he produced a crest, consisting of a shield with various quarter- ings surmounted by a bird, which looked like a scalded Philadelphia broiler rampant sitting on a buckwheat cake couchant, holding in its talons a red frankfurter sausage on which was inscribed the Latin sentence, Nux Vomica, Spiritus Frumenti, Sic Semper Tyrannis, which, being trans- lated, reads, ' ' Guests having hand-baggage only will be required to pay in advance." HOTELS IN NEW ENGLAND HOTELS IN NEW ENGLAND I HAVE personally a very kindly feeling toward the New England hotel men and the New England hotels, for I was raised in a little New England hotel in a little New England town. My parents paid four dollars a week for my board, and it is my pride and boast that the landlady never made a cent out of me. A year ago I took my son on a tandem bicycle and rode through some of the interesting old towns along the eastern shore. If there is anything in this world calculated to give one a copious thirst, it is pushing along on a tandem a large over- grown boy with a natural shrinking from overexertion. We visited a lot of fasci- 241 24 2 A Few Remarks nating Colonial towns replete with historic interest, but singularly deficient in lager beer saloons. I found that my thirst for knowledge was entirely outclassed by my thirst for malt beverages. I bore that thirst with me for many a weary mile, and I shall never forget Newbury port, for that was the first wet town I struck, and there I slaked my thirst. I am a temper- ate man, like most hotel men, but a few visits to total abstinence towns, I am satisfied, would drive me to a drunkard's grave. I remember Newburyport with peculiar pleasure, not alone on account of the slaking of my thirst, nor because of the courtesy received at the Wolfe Tavern, but because I saw there what I never saw before. When dinner time came, the little son of one of the proprietors put on a little white apron and went in and Hotels in New England helped wait on the table. When that boy grows up he'll know something about his father's business. It's a rare thing in this country to find a boy who isn't too high-toned to learn his father's business. I was also fortunate enough to pick up some rare and costly Revolutionary china, which I expressed home and subse- quently found was being manufactured right along at Trenton, New Jersey, and was worth some two dollars a cord. Also I have been in Concord, N. H. This town is celebrated because of its having among its leading residents Oliver Pelren, and Mrs. Eddy, the Mother of Christian Science. Oliver makes a hand- some living by taking in the public — 1 don't use the term in an offensive sense — Mrs. Eddy makes a handsome living also by taking in the public. Mrs. Eddy claims that by the practice of her science or re- 244 A Few Remarks ligion she can heal anything, and Oliver says that suits him exactly ; of course, he doesn't care to have anything to do with people unless they are well heeled. Now the Christian Scientist believes, as I under- stand it — and if I am wrong you will cor- rect me — that there is no such thing as matter, but only mind — that whatever you imagine to exist does exist, so that if the Scientists go down to Oliver's and imagine they get a good dinner they really get it. I have eaten at his place, but I am not a Christian Scientist. And when the guests go out, if they imagine they have paid for their dinner, why, they don't actually, but it seems as if they really had paid for it. I insisted upon having my boy educated in New England because I received my education in New England, in spite of my violent protests. I received my educa- Hotels in New England 245 tion, so-called, at a village school in the State of Connecticut. Now, when a teacher single-handed has to cope with about seventy-five pupils ranging from three to thirty years of age, especially if he doesn't happen to be an especially good coper, he naturally has to spread out his knowledge pretty thin ; and I, being of an unselfish nature, never endeavoured to absorb more than was my just due. But there was one branch of learning which I thoroughly absorbed in this temple of learning, and that was the art of sawing wood ; and thus, although I was never able to square the circle, I was able to square the teacher. Up there in Connecticut the winters were very long and cold, and the stoves were very large, and the supply of chilblains among the pupils far exceeded the supply of wood, and the consequence was that the teacher permitted me to give 246 A Few Remarks rein to my natural bent and permitted me to be bent over a saw-buck most of the time. It was only the favoured pupils who were permitted, in this institute, to saw wood ; the less favoured ones had to ring the bell and draw water and take care of the stove, while the rest were forced to content themselves with the degrading occupation of improving their minds. But it has always been a source of great satisfaction to me to think that I was educated in New Eng- land; because, although my knowledge may not be large or varied, I have always felt that I was thoroughly versed in the art of sawing wood ; and I tell you, gentle- men, to succeed in the hotel business a man has got to saw wood all the time. LORD BERESFORD AND THE PILGRIMS LORD BERESFORD AND THE PILGRIMS I AM proud and happy in my humble way to chuck a few bouquets at Lord Charles Beresford, and to breathe a few eloquent and burning remarks in his behalf. Also, I'm willing to do some eulogizing for the Pilgrims. In order to be posted about this Pilgrim business I looked in one of my children's dictionaries to see the definition of Pilgrim. It said therein, "A pilgrim is one who makes a pilgrimage." Then I looked up pilgrimage and it said, "A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken by a pilgrim." This information did not seem suffi- ciently explicit, so I looked in the " Century Dictionary" and there I found that "A pilgrim is one who journeys to some place 250 A Few Remarks esteemed sacred, either as a penance, or in order to discharge some vow or religious obligation." I can understand that for a New Yorker to go to London, or a Londoner to come to New York, may be in the nature of a penance, but where the vow of religious obligation comes in I have not yet dis- covered, although I have been to London several times, and never ventured out, after dark, without a chaperon. Then I examined your coat-of-arms or crest, as it appeared on my invitation, and that gave me some light. I saw thereon depicted a likeness of Chauncey Depew wearing a marked-down Rogers- Peet mackintosh, mounted on either a charger or a palfrey, I couldn't tell which ; but the Senator being a railroad man, and therefore slow pay, it was probably a charger. On the southerly exposure of the charger Lord Beresford and the Pilgrims 251 sits a bird which looks like a cross between the American eagle and a Vermont dry- picked turkey, and by his side stalks the British lion, with a slight twist in his tail, looking as if the eagle had been trying to take a fall out of him. Underneath is the Latin inscription Hie et ubique, which, being translated, means "Children over five years of age must pay full fare." I think the crest is unique and appro- priate, all but the twist in the lion's tail. If the eagle ever had any inclination to twist that tail, he has it no longer. I hope it will be one of the missions of the American Pilgrims to untwist that tail and put it in splints, and anoint it with precious oint- ments, and cause the twist to vanish like "a tale that is told," for if that lion and eagle could be trained to trot in double harness they would make a team which 252 A Few Remarks could leave every other combination at the post. I hope you will overlook this unexpected burst of eloquence, but I am constrained to say that I trust and pray that this bird and beast have had their last scrap with each other. The eagle is prematurely bald- headed, and the lion has side whiskers, which would indicate that he has arrived at the age of discretion, and as they spring from a common ancestry and speak a com- mon language, and have a common sense of justice and fairness and decency, may they stand side by side as world-builders and world-civilizers "with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right." Next I looked up Lord Charles. Of course I knew him by reputation as a bully fellow and all-round sport, and I knew he turned up periodically to watch the British Lord Beresford and the Pilgrims 253 cup challenger cling with bulldog tenacity to the lee of our boat, but I wanted to find out what he had done to warrant the Pilgrims in giving him a dinner at ten per plate. And so I sent my secretary down to the Astor Library and she came back loaded — with information. She found that Lord Charles was a sailor, a soldier, a diplomat, a sailmaker, a boilermaker, an engineer, a Member of Parliament, and other things too numerous to mention. She said he was born in 1846 — which is a libel — and that he bombarded Alexandria. She didn't get Alexandria's last name, nor did she ascertain what Alexandria had done, but I am sure it must have been something very unladylike or Sir Charles wouldn't have bombarded her. All these accomplishments of his are praiseworthy, but it is as a sailor that I 254 A Few Remarks venture to greet him. There is something about " a wet sheet and a flowing sail and a wind that follows fast" that irresistibly appeals to me, especially when I am on shore. When I am on board I prefer dry sheets, as I have a little tendency to bronchitis; and I prefer the flowing bowl to the flowing sail; and as for the wind that follows fast, I like best a wind which follows at a respectful distance and with- out undue haste. But I do love the sea and those who go down to the sea in ships, and I love the products of the sea. Look at salt mackerel. We have all seen mornings when, lacking salt mackerel, we would have starved to death. Salt mackerel sits upon a stormy stomach like a petrel on the bosom of the foaming wave. But to get back to Lord Charles ! I want to say that there is something about Lord Beresford and the Pilgrims 255 a life on the salt and antiseptic sea which sweetens and purifies and preserves a man so that even a subsequent life in Parlia- ment cannot spoil him. Of all the naval officers I have met, I have yet to find one who was not gentle and kindly and lovable and brave. We have some nice men in our navy, and competent, too. I know of no profession which requires greater bravery than that of the navy — unless it be mine, which is hotel-keeping. I hope Lord Charles will forgive me for lugging in this little personal advertise- ment, but as I can't eat because my heart is in my mouth, and I can't drink for drink steals away my brains, I must get square with the game somehow. Of course, the hotel-keeper's rewards are greater. He doesn't get so much glory, but glory is fleeting and you can't support a family on it. 256 A Few Remarks The life of the sailor and the landlord have some features in common. Both trim their sails to every favoring gale. Both sail as close to the wind as possible. Both love the water, but love it best "on the side." Both are happiest when half- seas over and with three sheets in the wind. But while the sailor puts up his nets to repel boarders, the landlord spreads his nets to haul them in. IN THE SOUTH IN THE SOUTH A FEW weeks ago, at Palm Beach, I was walking on the pier, when a man dashed up, called me by name, and wrung me warmly by the hand. Now, I have lived opposite the Grand Central Depew so long that I have become rather suspicious of these hand-shakers, and I presume my greeting was somewhat dis- tant and haughty, for the stranger said: "I see you don't recognise me." I gave him the old gag about his face being familiar, but I couldn't place him, etc. "Why," said he, "you delivered a mag- nificent oration in my honour at the Lotos Club last winter. I am Elihu Root." Well, if there had been a convenient knot-hole around, I'd have dropped through. And yet how can I be expected 259 260 A Few Remarks to remember all the people I eulogise in this taffy-factory and soft-soap dispensary ? When Chester Lord orders me to come and eulogise a man, why, I come and eulogise him without regard to race, colour, or previous condition of inebriety, and when I have gotten through with my eulogy I just go on about my business. I don't pay any particular attention to the guest of honour, or try to impress his likeness upon my memory. I don't have time. As I explained to Mr. Root: I said, " You men — cabinet officers, mayors, and such — are but the creatures of an hour. You are hot stuff for a time, and you have dinners tendered you, and bouquets thrown at you, and laurel wreaths placed on your brows, but it's funny what a difference just a few hours make! The next thing we know you are out of a job and back at the old stand, looking for law business." In the South 261 As Bill says: "For men may come and men may go, But me and Frank Lawrence and Captain White go on forever." And then these guests of honour look so different when you get them outside ! Take them away from the centre' of the stage and the glare of the calcium, and that drawn and haggard look disappears and they appear just like human beings. Speaking of Palm Beach. This was my first visit, and, in my opinion, it is an earthly paradise, and I paid my board, too, just like anybody else. When I left New York the mercury was having one of those sinking spells which have been so prevalent this winter, and I was swathed in furs and Jaegers and chilblains and my nose was working overtime. Forty hours later, my dimpled form arrayed in a cute little bathing-suit, I was disporting my- 262 A Few Remarks self in the flashing waters of the Atlantic, surrounded by society ladies, ladies who are not in society, ladies who are trying to butt into society, million- aires, politicians, John Gates, John Jacob Astor, and other tropical amphibia. As I looked about me and recognised the mem- bers of the 400 of whom I have so often read in Town Topics — people whose names are household words in each other's house- holds — I felt proud to think I lived in this free land, where it was my privilege to bathe in the same swells with these swells. I was afraid to venture in at first for fear of the sharks which are said to infest these waters, but the bathing-master assured me that as soon as the Wall Street men came down the local talent took to flight. Palm Beach is well named. There are palms on every hand, and especially on the hands of the coloured employees, and In the South ■ 263 they are continually waving, thus creating a gentle draught on the pocketbook. Every time you turn around you are held up by a coloured bandit with a seductive smile and a productive whiskbroom, and his battle-cry is "No quarter — nothing less than a half dollar." They keep the pot boiling down there, and the lid is off, and you can look right in. They have a club where you can play games of chance. They are not really games of chance — they are sure things. I tried it. You pick a number and put a dollar or two on it, and if the marble rolls right you get thirty-five for one. But I proved to be a poor picker. Still, you do have a chance, and that beats Wall Street, where you have no chance at al I believe if Wall Street was shut up and Canfield's opened we could all have more fun with our money. I've tried both and 264 A Few Remarks I know what I'm talking about. You get broken on the wheel either way. I think we've got a great little mayor. I like his looks. He looks clean cut, well groomed, and trained to the minute. He comes of good stock. He has started in right. Some of us who didn't vote for him had an idea when he was elected that the city would at once become a sort of Sodom and Gomorrah. Instead of that, the minute he got in he took his new broom and began to sweep, and apparently his sainted predecessor had left quite a little dirt around in the corners. And then he made a master-stroke. He advocated more water for New York. Think of a Tammany man interesting himself in water ! And now they talk about him for President ! This is a great country. One day a man is a quiet citizen pursuing the even tenor of his way, and the next day In the South 265 he wakes up and finds himself a Peerless Leader with a capital P. I hope to wake up some day and find myself a peerless leader, and then I suppose I'll wake up. They say our little mayor is likely Presidential timber. Well, stranger things have happened ! But if the two great parties don't quit scrapping together, General Miles at the head of the Prohibi- tion ticket will go in in a walk, and then with our new salt-water system we will have "Water, water everywhere, But not a drop to drink." ON CLOTHES AND CLOTHIERS ON CLOTHES AND CLOTHIERS OF course I know something about clothes. I have always, in defer- ence to the tyranny of fashion and a severe climate, worn clothes. Not always such clothes as I desired to wear, but still, by courtesy, clothes. When I was a boy children were not pampered as they are now. Liliputian bazaars were infrequent. As a rule, our clothes had been worn pre- viously by some adult relative of an entirely different style of architecture. Our mothers used to lay us on the floor, mark around us with a piece of chalk, and hew out alleged garments from these hand- me-downs. The results were serviceable rather than natty. 269 270 A Few Remarks I recollect appearing at school one day in a suit carved out of my uncle's army overcoat. I entered with some misgivings. I was received with enthusiasm. Remarks were made calculated to wound my feelings. In order to provide against a habit I had of growing rapidly, tucks had been made in the trousers, intended to be let out from time to time. The effect was more strik- ing and bizarre than fashionable. It was common gossip at the time that army clothes were made of shoddy — a poor, flimsy material. The gossip was un- founded. My suit wore like iron. I tried to wear it out. I spent hours sliding down cellar-doors and sitting in custard and cranberry pies, and spilling food on myself, but that hateful army overcoat was indestructible and imperishable. Finally, in despair, I set to work and outgrew it, and it was passed along to a younger On Clothes and Clothiers 271 relative, and I dare say some unhappy- wretch is wearing it yet. Some one tells me that the manufacture of clothing is New York's greatest industry. Doesn't it seem a shame that the Creator should have provided every other living thing free of charge with well-fitting and self -renewing clothing, and then left man, his latest and noblest work, to the mercy of you fellows? I never see a dog or cat without a feeling of envy. Just a lick and a shake and a scratch and the toilet is complete, while we poor mortals wear out our lives tying and untying, and buttoning and unbuttoning. I don't suppose you will agree with me, but I think the way we are tyrannized and bullied by the makers of clothing is outrageous. We can't wear what we con- sider comfortable and appropriate and becoming, but we must wear just what you 272 A Few Remarks tell us ; and no sooner do we lay in a stock of tight trousers and get broken in to their use, than you issue an edict that baggy ones are the thing; and no sooner do we buy a covert coat which coyly displays the seat of the trousers, than you switch us off onto Newmarkets which drag on the ground. And then men's clothing is so hideous ! Hamlet says: " 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black." Ham must have had on his evening clothes when he said that! "Customary suits of solemn black" just describes it. Isn't it queer, then, when a man wants to appear gay or charming, or grace a festive occasion, he dons one of these spike-tailed, low-necked, shad-bellied atrocities, which makes him look like a cross between a hearse and a morgue — a suit only fit to On Clothes and Clothiers 273 be buried in and not really appropriate for that. Of course we have to adapt ourselves to our climatic environments, but so have the women, and see how lovely they always look ! We can't wear togas because we couldn't pass the Flatiron Building on a windy day without making talk, and we can't wear kilts because we have to climb the elevated stairs, but it seems to me you might liven us up a bit. In the animal kingdom the male is always better appear- ing, but the plumage of man is far, far from gay. I wish you would think this over. You all seem to be throwing bouquets at each other because of a pernicious habit you have of opening your credit books for one another's inspection. The consequence is that an ambitious and struggling young merchant cannot buy any more goods 274 A Few Remarks than he can pay for. This is what I call a "combination in restraint of trade." It may be all right for you, but how annoying to the man of small capital, large family, and a previously useful gift at making out attractive statements. I shudder to think of the results of introducing such a system into the retail or custom trade. Many of our best-dressed young men would have to go about arrayed in barrels. But, gentlemen, you are doing a great work. You are doing what every trade must do sooner or later or go broke. You are fixing things so that people cannot do business entirely on wind. Wind and water are the two elements which are wrecking so many of our business enter- prises. Your system keeps a merchant where he belongs. We have too many folks trying to run a hundred-horse-power engine with a one-mule-power boiler. On Clothes and Clothiers 2 75 If it wasn't so easy to get credit in this country we couldn't put on as much front, but we would all pay one hundred cents on the dollar. Looking over the membership list of this association, the thought strikes me that the Jews are creeping into the clothing business. I don't see a Christian (so-called) name. I am afraid this is another case of religious intolerance. If this thing keeps on, you'll have to get up a fund and send the Christians out to colonize Palestine. I notice, however, that none of you go into the hotel business. I don't blame you. What, with the price of coal and meat and groceries, it has become a mere philanthropic pursuit, and a hotel-keeper is simply a fence between the traveler and the tradesman. THE RAINES LAW THE RAINES LAW THE Desert of Sahara is a fashionable watering-place compared with our city on Sunday. The historic remark of the Governor of North Carolina to the Governor of South Carolina regarding the lapse of time between drinks has been frequently reverted to of late. The Bible tells of the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea dry shod. The Children of Israel have crossed New York City a good many times lately perfectly dry, en route to Brooklyn or Hoboken, and, in consequence, have formed a new political party called the "Garoos, " through the saving grace of which they hope to make of our city a sort of new Garoosalum. The Bible adds that the 279 A Few Remarks reformers who pursued the Children of Israel were overwhelmed by the sea, "chariot and horse, and there remained not so much as one of them." I think the sea which is likely to overwhelm our Reformers is not the Red Sea, but the Thomas C. (Piatt). Hotels alone are permitted to sell liquor on Sunday, and then only with meals. In consequence, every gin-mill in New York is now a hotel. It is easy to create a hotel. All you need is ten microscopic bedrooms and a cuisine con- sisting of a half-dozen indestructible celluloid patent fly-back sandwiches, guaranteed to withstand the ravages of time and not to soil, crack, split or mould. When a man has a Sunday thirst, he hies him to one of these hotels, and is served with a meal consisting of one of these sandwiches, with boundless liquor The Raines Law 281 on the side. Rumour has it that a rash customer once essayed to eat his sandwich, but was prevented by the indignant pro- tests of the outraged proprietor. I read in the Sun of a brawl in a so-called hotel, where a man, in a transport of rage, seized a petrified Raines-law sandwich and brained a companion therewith. This law was made in the interest of temperance, and, like most of the moves along that line, is rapidly tending to make inebriates of the community at large. I do not object to the selling of liquor by saloons. Their patronage and ours do not conflict. We sell liquor on Sunday because the law holds that we are bound to supply our guests every day of the week with what they require in the way of food and drink. I don't know of a hotel in New York which sells enough liquor on 2 ° 2 A Few Remarks Sunday to pay its barkeepers. But I don't like the law which permits every saloon to convert itself into a hotel by the use of a hammer, nails, a few planks and an indestructible sandwich. Hotel-keeping is a dignified and honour- able calling, requiring brains, experience and capital. A hotel is designated as a place where travelers can secure lodging, food and drink. Thanks to the Raines law, we have hundreds of places in New York, masquerading as hotels, where no traveler ever sleeps or eats; hotels in name only, made solely for the purpose of evading the law. Some decent; some vile; all shams. I don't object to them because they injure our business, for they don't; but I object to our calling being brought into disrepute by their existence. Why call them hotels? As well call Al. Adams's place a savings bank, or The Raines Law 283 some of the Tenderloin resorts a young ladies' seminary. I admire the courage of Bishop Potter and Doctor Rainsford and some other bold spirits who come out honestly and say, "Let the saloons stay open some hours on Sunday with the sanction of the law, instead of staying open all hours on Sunday, as now, under the cloak of hypocrisy, pretending to be what they are not — hotels. " And yet, the men who made this law, made it knowing it was a sham and a fake and a fraud, are now raising their eyes to Heaven and crying for the preservation of the sanctity of the American Sabbath. Rot ! Why call them hotels? Why not call a spade a spade ? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and a darned sight sweeter. THE TROUBLES OF A HOTEL MAN THE TROUBLES OF A HOTEL MAN THERE is no class of men in the community who are so imposed upon and have so much abuse heaped upon them, and get so fat on it, as the hotel men. The law looks upon the hotel man as a cross between a licensed pirate and a free insurance company. The public looks upon the hotel man as one whom it is no crime to rob, no dis- honour to deceive, and a crown of glory to get the best of in any way possible. We supply three-quarters of the com- munity, free of charge, with soap, towels, stationery, toothpicks and intellect; and yet every man who swells our coffers by spending ten or fifteen cents at our bar (and, incidentally, absorbs thirty-five 287 288 A Few Remarks cents' worth of free lunch), thinks we are grasping monopolists, and devotes the remainder of his days in trying to get hunk with us. We are supposed to be so affluent that we are expected to head every subscription list, to contribute liberally to every charity, and to cash every man's check, regardless of race, colour or previous condition of servitude. Hotel men get caught on bad checks more often than in any other way. It's the worst feature of the business. Men are traveling and don't want to carry large sums of cash. They have their funds in checks. They want the hotels to be their bankers. Of course we like to be obliging, but it is hard to discriminate between the honest and the dishonest, and about once in so often we are left with a worthless check. And speaking of checks, last summer, in The Troubles of a Hotel Man 289 those happy days before the Fair, the Duke of Veragua one day escaped from the Waldorf, and, being in our neighbour- hood, he found himself short of funds — a very common complaint last summer — a sort of summer complaint ; and he came into our hotel and asked to have a check cashed. It so fell out that the clerk happened to have one of those lucid intervals, which clerks do occasionally have, when they make inquiries before cashing checks. Usually they cash the check and make the inquiries afterward. So he said to the Duke: " I haven't the honour of your acquaint- ance, " and the Duke replied, with a certain air of being stuck on himself which seems to be characteristic of royalty: "I am the sole descendant of the immortal Christopher Columbus." "Well," said the clerk, "you go and 290 A Few Remarks get the immortal Chris, to indorse your check, and we'll cash it for you." You've probably heard about the con- tinual peculation in hotels. No one real- izes the extent of it except the hotel men. The year's loss in that way is simply incredible. Nobody seems to have any conscience about robbing a hotel. We can't keep sugar-tongs or oyster-forks, or after-dinner coffee spoons. All the silver goes fast. Towels vanish like magic. We simply can't buy towels fast enough to keep up the supply. Traveling men are particularly appreciative towel col- lectors. They stock up here in New York against coming towel stringency in country towns. Sometimes I think the women are worse at that than the men. Yet it was a man that played the limit here; he got away with a pair of blankets — cut holes in the middle of them, stuck his The Troubles of a Hotel Man 291 head through the holes, put on his long overcoat and buttoned it up, and started out of the hotel. The corners of the blankets hung down below his overcoat and caught the clerk's eye. We saved the blankets. It was a man, too, who tried to steal our marble parlour clock. The clock weighs more than one hundred pounds. The man walked right into the parlour and deliberately took this superb timepiece from the mantel. There were guests in the room, but they supposed he was a clock-maker on business bent. He lugged it up to his room. A chambermaid, opening his door suddenly, saw him groveling wildly on his stomach on the floor and pushing something under the bed, but she didn't think anything of it. Hotel people aren't easily surprised. After awhile the clock was missed and the 292 A Few Remarks gossip about it ran through the hotel. The chambermaid remembered the human turtle. She trotted up to his room, dived under the bed, and hauled out the clock. College boys have a taste for hotel souvenirs. When the Yale-Princeton football game used to be played here, the hotel proprietors had to hire men to sit on all their movable property. The boys went through the hotels like locusts through a farm. We didn't even have a "This way to the elevator" sign left in the house when the invading horde swept on. A good many of the country guests collect hotel souvenirs. Uncle Joshua comes from a town, where he can live on seventy-five cents a week, and when a hotel man asks him to pay $2.50 a day he thinks he's being held up and robbed. The Troubles of a Hotel Man 293 He figures that everything he can carry off won't begin to make him quits. But the country guests aren't any lighter-fingered than the city guests. The proprietor of one of our finest hotels in New York told me of a lady who came to visit his wife at their country home last summer. The maid went up to unpack the visitor's trunks, and told her mistress that the trunks were full of towels and silver and napkins and pillow-shams and all that sort of thing, marked with the names of the different hotels where the visitor had been staying. The joke of it was, that the gems of the collection had been gathered from the hotel of the man at whose house the woman was visiting. I've an idea, founded on bitter experience, that thousands of happy homes in this great country must be furnished chiefly at the expense of New York hotel-keepers. 294 A Few Remarks Every hotel has its crank boarders. Sometimes their crankiness takes the form of what is politely called kleptomania. Everybody in the hotel knows the boarder lifts things, but if he pays his bills and is unobjectionable in every other way no scandal is stirred up. There are ways of keeping even without hard feelings. At one of the good old New York hotels there's an old lady who, for thirty years, has stolen a plate at each meal. She picks out whatever suits her fancy. Every- body knows she does it. In fact, she doesn't try to hide the little propensity. She has her hotel room full of the plates, all over the wall and the shelves. She's not quite right in her mind, but she's unexceptional in regard to everything except plates, so they wink at that little peculiarity. The proprietor says she never tries to take any of the plates out of the The Troubles of a Hotel Man 295 hotel, and that she will never go away until she dies. Then he'll get his property back. Meanwhile, she's a paying patron, and there's no use hurting her feelings over three plates a day. I don't encourage old ladies myself. I like them, but not in my capacity of hotel proprietor. When they come to stay, I don't try hard to cater to them. They go away. There's one hotel in town where most of them land. They don't admit any guests at that hotel unless they have gray side curls. A nice old lady is nice, but the average old lady is a troublesome boarder, and we have enough troubles without courting any. There are drawbacks to running a hotel next door to a railroad station. Half the people who come for meals are trying to catch trains. A man has twelve minutes to spare, and he comes in and 2 9 6 A Few Remarks orders an extra thick porterhouse. In two minutes he begins to squirm. In three minutes he calls the head waiter and says he ordered a steak and has been waiting three-quarters of an hour. In eight minutes he goes off swearing and blackguards the hotel ever after. We've fixed the thing now. I bought a time stamp. The clerk stamps each order with the exact time it is given. When a man at the end of three minutes swears he's been waiting three-quarters of an hour, we take the stamped check to him and tell him he's a damned liar. Perhaps we don't do exactly that, but you see the idea. This hotel business is very trying. THE HOTEL GUEST THE HOTEL GUEST IT is said that the word "guest" is derived from the Saxon gest, or the French gist, which literally means "a stage of rest in a journey." Webster says a guest is ' 'a stranger who comes from a distance and takes his lodgings at a place. " I meant to have told you the definition given in the Century Dictionary, but when I came to look for the volume containing the "G's" in our hotel library I discov- ered that some guest of a literary turn of mind had carried it away as a souvenir of his visit to the metropolis. Mr. Raines thinks a guest is a traveler who comes to a hotel from 'way back, accompanied by a yearning for -reform, a hair trunk with his initials graven thereon 29$ 3°° A Few Remarks in brass nails, and a rooted aversion to the use of stimulants on the Sabbath. Our police justices hold that a guest is one who, on week days, craves a meal of several courses, but who on Sunday is content to dine on a petrified Raines law sandwich with rum on the side. But whatever the definition of a guest may be, we all know that of late years he has become a very shy bird, easily taking flight, difficult to approach, and therefore hard to make a study of. I came near catching one this summer, but he eluded me and got up to Fifty -ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, and, although I saw him first, he was there captured, torn into three pieces and divided around. You must forgive me, therefore, if my disquisition upon the subject assigned me is not as exhaustive as it is exhausting. I am happy to say, however, that of late The Hotel Guest 301 there are symptoms of reviving business; travelers are again abroad, the hotel clerk is getting haughty once more, and it would seem as though the time were not far distant when it will be unnecessary for the hotel man to retire into the seclusion of the cellar on hearing the approaching footsteps of the butcher. The business of hotel-keeping is looked upon as very fascinating by those who are not engaged in it. That the profits are fabulous every one knows who does not have to pay the bills. When I walk through the tessellated corridors of my hotel, I can see the guests gazing at me with awe, and can hear them speaking with bated breath of the vastness of my wealth. This, naturally, makes me feel haughty, and after such an experience it is grilling to have to go and plead with my horse-radish man to extend my note. 3° 2 A Few Remarks I suppose this popular delusion regard- ing the profits of our business is but natural. A man of small means comes to the city from his native town. As he timidly approaches the counter, a gor- geously appareled Ethiopian dashes up, wrenches his luggage away from him, and proceeds to remove the nap from his Sunday suit with a whisk-broom. Right here I want to say that, in my opinion, the whisk-broom, in the hands of the stealthy, insidious African, will drive away more boarders than anything yet devised. I never permit one of my employees to brandish one of these engines of destruction. I would sooner have a darkey pull a razor on me than a whisk- broom. If I must be bled to death, I want to have it over quickly. But to revert to my subject. The timid man stands in front of the clerk, The Hotel Guest 303 and the clerk affects to be oblivious of his presence, and continues to relate a humor- ous anecdote to the commercial traveler. Finally the timid man plucks up courage to ask the clerk if he can get a room. The clerk, with a look of disdain, spins the register around, projects a pen at the timid man, and the timid man feels that the really proper thing for him to do would be to get off the earth. After the registering is done, the clerk selects a key at random and hurls it at the timid man, and the African gentleman drags him away and slams him into the elevator. When he is in his room, the coloured gentleman brushes away the last remain- ing spark of vitality which yet remains in him and leaves him in a condition of collapse. Now, the timid man is naturally im- pressed by all this, and he jumps to the 3 04 A Few Remarks conclusion that if the clerk is such an autocrat, the proprietor must sit on a throne with a diadem on his brow. That is one kind of a guest — the timid guest — but there are a good many who are not troubled that way. Most guests thoroughly understand the art of getting all there is to get out of the hotel man. On the whole, I think the guest has the big end of it. Pretty much everything is done in our modern hotels which it is possible to do for the comfort and con- venience of guests. Royalty itself is not better housed nor fed nor served than is the guest in the modern hotel of to-day. AMENITIES OF STREET-CAR TRAVELING AMENITIES OF STREET-CAR TRAVELING AS the only man in the present assemblage who ever rides on street-cars, or at any rate the only one who ever pays fare thereon, I alone am competent to give the cold, icy facts relating thereto. When a man has to plunk out a reluctant nickel every time he fails to elude the eye of the conductor he is apt to become captious and cynical, and to notice certain failings which short- sighted deadheads would never observe. When I learned that St. Clair McKelway, of Brooklyn, was to be one of the speakers this evening, I was glad, because I consider h'm one of the slickest of us orators. Brooklyn, as you know, is situated between the Borough of Manhattan and 3°7 3°8 A Few Remarks Greenwood cemetery — midway between pleasure and the grave — and has produced some great men besides Mr. McKelway. Seth Low and Tim Woodruff and Mr. Shepard all emanate from Brooklyn. I sprang from Brooklyn myself. I sprang from Brooklyn the minute I had money enough to pay board in New York, and I am proud of it. Brooklyn has a wonder- ful street-car system. You can ride more miles there for five cents, and have less company while doing so, than in any other city in the world. I am the proud pos- sessor of one hundred shares of Brooklyn Rapid Transit stock. I hold onto it for the same reason that a man holds on to a live wire. I can't let go. I hold it as a heritage for my grandchildren. I expect they will live to see a dividend declared on it. We are a long-lived race. The certificate is a beautiful work of art. I Amenities of Street-car Traveling 309 go down to my broker's office sometimes and he lets me look at it. In one corner there is a lovely portrait of Lydia Pinkham just after taking a dose of her own medi- cine, and in the other a group representing Faith, Hope and Charity trying to get the strangle-hold on each other. Some day, when I have saved up money by using the annual which I have been expecting from the Metropolitan, I am going to have this certificate framed, with a wide margin — you need a wide margin on Brooklyn Rapid Transit— and hang it up in my bathroom, where I can look at it Saturday nights except in extremely cold weather. I have observed with much solicitation the career of Mr. Vreeland. The papers say he is a self-made man, and he looks as if he rather overdid the job. He began at the bottom of the ladder, parted from the top rung long ago, and is still climbing. 3*° A Few Remarks His ambition is boundless, and he may yet live to have a cigar named after him. Every Christmas morning he wakes up and finds $50,000 in his socks — twenty- five in each sock. Vreeland always lands with both feet. This is just a little tribute of affection from his directors. When they give him anything, they sock it to him. I hope it doesn't come out of the stockholders. I am a stockholder in that road, too. Oh, I'm an easy mark ! The real story of Mr. Vreeland' s rise is this: He was steward down in the Madison Avenue car-stables and one of his duties was to water the horses. Even the horses had to take water when Vree- land came around. They nourished their horses on water and straw, and in hot weather they allowed them the privilege of drinking the water through the straw. Well. W. C. Whitney happened to see Amenities of Street-car Traveling 3 11 him engaged in the prosecution of his duties, and he said to himself, "Any man who is as skilful as that at watering stock ought to be at the head of the Metropolitan Traction Company." So they put him in charge of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, at a salary of $1,000,000 a year, and he's a bargain at that, for he can rush out fresh editions of stock and bonds quicker than a yellow journal can print extras. But Vreeland has instituted quite a lot of reforms in our street-car system. It was he who conceived the idea of making the seats of the open cars just too wide for four people and just too narrow for five. The consequence is that no sooner do four people get comfortably seated than a fifth appears, usually a large, sprightly lady, quite broad across the narrows, who, with an air of careless 312 A Few Remarks abandon, flings herself bodily into the breach. This is a good thing, because it brings people into closer touch with each other — so close, indeed, that one often gets touched for a watch or pocketbook. In another of his lucid intervals he got up the scheme of heating cars by placing at intervals under the seats electric broilers, thus applying the heat direct where it will do the most good. Consequently, when a man gets home at night he has chilblains on his feet and blisters elsewhere. On warm, humid, winter days, the conductors hermetically seal up the cars so that no air can enter, and then turn these electric broilers on at a pressure of eight thousand amperes. On cold days the heat is turned off and all the ventilators are opened wide. This has a tendency to make our race hardy, since only the strong survive. Amenities of Street-car Traveling 313 And now he is giving his attention to the invention of some scheme by which ladies will be prevented from leaping off cars backward while they are running at full speed. This habit, so popular with the fair sex, coupled with their practice of invariably standing on the lower corner and waving their parasols at approaching cars, has put many a con- ductor into such nervous prostration that he even goes so far as to forget to ring up an occasional fare. However, I am glad the women have taken up the transportation problem. They are going to compel the traction companies to provide each female woman with a seat, hot and cold water, and •trie curling-irons. It makes a man's blood boil to think that his wife, after a hard day's shopping, is compelled to ride home in a car seated in some other fellow's 314 A Few Remarks lap, or that she should be jostled by rude working-men, who have the nerve to ride home from work when such excellent walking facilities are provided. Some- times I have thought it would be as well for the non-working women to get home before the rush hours, but I have never dared to suggest it in the bosom of my family. 3 1158 00297 9010 \ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 695 473 9