The Hotel Itself Will Create A Population, As The
Railways Do.
With us railways run to the towns; but in the States
the towns run to the railways.
It is the same thing with the
hotels.
Housekeeping is not popular with young married people in America,
and there are various reasons why this should be so. Men there are
not fixed in their employment as they are with us. If a young
Benedict cannot get along as a lawyer at Salem, perhaps he may
thrive as a shoemaker at Thermopylae. Jefferson B. Johnson fails in
the lumber line at Eleutheria, but hearing of an opening for a
Baptist preacher at Big Mud Creek moves himself off with his wife
and three children at a week's notice. Aminadab Wiggs takes an
engagement as a clerk at a steamboat office on the Pongowonga River,
but he goes to his employment with an inward conviction that six
months will see him earning his bread elsewhere. Under such
circumstances even a large wardrobe is a nuisance, and a collection
of furniture would be as appropriate as a drove of elephants. Then
again young men and women marry without any means already collected
on which to commence their life. They are content to look forward
and to hope that such means will come. In so doing they are guilty
of no imprudence. It is the way of the country, and, if the man be
useful for anything, employment will certainly come to him. But he
must live on the fruits of that employment, and can only pay his way
from week to week and from day to day. And as a third reason, I
think I may allege that the mode of life found in these hotels is
liked by the people who frequent them. It is to their taste. They
are happy, or at any rate contented, at these hotels, and do not
wish for household cares. As to the two first reasons which I have
given, I can agree as to the necessity of the case, and quite concur
as to the expediency of marriage under such circumstances. But as
to that matter of taste, I cannot concur at all. Anything more
forlorn than a young married woman at an American hotel, it is
impossible to conceive.
Such are the guests expected for those two hundred bedrooms. The
chance travelers are but chance additions to these, and are not
generally the mainstay of the house. As a matter of course the
accommodation for travelers which these hotels afford increases and
creates traveling. Men come because they know they will be fed and
bedded at a moderate cost, and in an easy way, suited to their
tastes. With us, and throughout Europe, inquiry is made before an
unaccustomed journey is commenced, on that serious question of
wayside food and shelter. But in the States no such question is
needed. A big hotel is a matter of course, and therefore men
travel. Everybody travels in the States.
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