Life — August 30, 1900 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The American Hotel. HE American hotel is an insti- tution: it ranges in size and pretension from the Waldorf- Astoria of New York to the Glacier Hotel of Cape Nome; from the caravansary where French-named dishes induce apo- plexy and stupefac- tion, to the rural hashery where indigestion and delirium tre- mens wait on appetite. Hotels are divided into three classes: City hotels, usually called houses, located in real cities; houses given over to boarding, lodging and stabling, sonorously termed hotels, located in centers variously called cities and towns, and in rural places ; and beach hotels, usually called by some mel- lifluous and billowy name, and located on sand, clam-shell, oyster-shell and cinder heaps, facing salt water. * . . 4 Dears City Hotel is a place to which the kidnapped traveler is brought from railroad stations by the bandit who seizes him, and while he is being permitted to write his name in a book a haughty person, with ornaments, inspects him with fine scorn. All persons west of Buffalo register from Chicago and Cleveland ; all north of New York from Boston ; it is a universal law that people living outside of these storm centers never travel. The traveler makes remarks and suggestions which are ignored ; a bell is rung sharply; the haughty, ornamental person says, ‘Front’ ; the captive is hustled into an elevator, shot up many flights, and disgorged into a small room, where he is inspected by a small, cigarette-flavored youth, who throws his bags on the floor, holds out his hand, and glares. Should the hand be ignored, the youth flies and returns with ice-water and an extended hand, when the tired traveler gives up, or does worse. When the traveler eats, the despot of the dining- room selects some spot he doesn’t want and makes him sit there. During his captivity he is charged for everything he does, says, sees, suggests; the parlor, ice-water, stationery, YOU ARE Looning a] eR A PeRFCCILY sare ONC Um B FAtKY mawncea ere Buy tHe “UrtLe PET” GASOLINE MGTGR SASS UKE Cnty soap and service are free to all except tho so-called guest. The guest is the hotel clerk’s hated foe ; everybody else is his friend; hence the system. The guest is charged for board, lodging and attendance, but he is graciously per- mitted to pay everybody's wages in fees before he gets those comicbooks.com