The Portland daily press., 1878-06-12
Our New York Letter.
Ahe "oinhnS Hoiti-Livias in Flats
The Origin of Disconnnt-snmmer
oniet-General Blsiue..


New YORK, June 10, 1878.
A. CO. "omahs Hotel,' which was during
~. S'o"ai's hie time one Of his dreams of
uH,noenoe' hau very brief existence. If ts
ioander mad lived its fate no doubt would. have
oeeh different. He was not the sort of person
70 confess any scheme of his a failure, or to
neglect any means of making it success, If
ne iound the prices too high he would have
lowered them; if the rules were too STRINGENT
ne would have modified them. No ligbt DIS
couragement would have swerved him from bis
purpose. His successor, quick to act. and i'm
patent at not receiving prompt support, aban-
doned the scheme before it had had fair trial
IL is questionable whether the change he bas
made Will mend matters. The house is nor
well located for transient business, and the
competition in that line will for while greatly
oihlnish the chances of profit from the enter
prise. There have been large number of
noleis Quilt even during the dali times of the
panic. Most of them are what are known as
uats'" being virtually tenement houses for
well to-do people where they can occupy suits
VI apartments and club the expenses of living.
Inc fashion saves the bother of looking after
heip' and is promotive of that luxurious
ldleness which ladies' in cities are so much
prone to indalge in. 1t takes away all that
noule ieeilng which we Yankees nave been
orouSnt up TO regard as something too tender
ana sacred TO be tiitied with. Bat then there
are very rev points of resemblance between the
Nc" england matron of the past generation
and the metropolitan woman of the nresent
With what prida it used to be quoted of the
Puritan wife and mother, 'She looketb we'll tA
the ways of her household and eatetb no, the
bread of idleuess." With how much literal
accuracy the words may be applied to a vas.
majority of the modern city danes: "Thev toll
not' tney spin not; and yet say unto you that
solomon In all his glory was not arrayed like
one of these
VI course this mode Of living entails heavy
expense and the public gets great many re-
turns from 1t IN the morning newspapers under
tne mead OF business embarrassmeuts" and
sees still more of it in the innumerable cases
OF want that Come under the observation Of
pretty much every man who mingles at all
with his fellow beings. A populous city is the
worst possible place 10 which a necessitous ner
son can stay; but that class abound here. and
tney cannot be got away. They are always
hopeiul OF change for the better until theK
nave parted with every valuable they possessed,
and nave borrowed of every friend they could
persuade or importune to lend them ANYTHING.
by that time their means of getting away are
all gone and the last source of relief seems to
Dc exhausted. Then they fall to declaming
against the administration of the finances and
demand thai there shall be more money made.
Ii we cannot have the genuine article an artifi-
cial substitute must be supplied. 1t does not
seem to occur to them that if the dilution of
the currency were TO be followed up until a
government note were as worthless as the
thing the semi savages of Baenos Ayres call a
dollar they wouldn't be able to get hold of any
of the stuff-supposing it to possess any value
at sll-unless they did something to caro- Ii.
And when they are obliged to work for what
they get it certainly is for their interest tor re-
ceive in payment for their labor money that is
worth its face. 1t is the strangest thing i'm.
aginable that any human being who is sensible
enough to accept the selfevident proposition
that honest toll is the trusst manhood, should
be willing to barter his solid Drawn for soft
money. I can understand how fellows who
are seeking to get rich by speculation and
strategy should prefer fuctuatng to stable
currency, but that is the only class who can
have even the expectation of profting by ex-
in the long run that they will lose quite as
much as they will make by it.
However, for the present everything that
forms an element in the cost of living is cheap,
and tending to greater cheapness 1t was nat.
ural, therefore, that Mr. Hilton should have
some difficulty in letting his rooms to eligible
feminine tenants at the scale of prices he
fixed. If he had held out inducements By
making his charges a third less than he did,
he would no doubt have filed his house up.
After he had oncs got it started and POPULAR
lied it would not have been impracticable to
have raised the rates by degrees to poiut that
wouli have rendered the enterprise self-sustain-
ing. When Paran Stevens, who was supposed
to be the most capable hotel manager of his
time, and Alfred b. Darling, who is qaite
equal to Mr.. Stevens in ability and vastly his
superior in the qualities that inspire friendshlp,
opened the Fifth Avenue Hotel in 1857 there
was very much such a depression as we are
passing through now. They recognized the
fact and made their arrangements accordingly.
They filled their house up very rapidly By At-
ting rooms at exceedingly low figures. Within
q very short time they made it the most at
tractive house in the country, and it has ever
since been and is today the best paying and
most excellently conducted public house on
this contiLent To be sure it has location
that cannot be surpassed. That is undeniablF
an immense advantage. But the start 1t got
then was owing to the tact with which the pro-
prietors adapted themselves to the times. II
such concessions were deemed essential for
building up an establishment so admirably sit.
lated, how much more necessary they muse be
IN commencing an undertaking SO novel and
as that of setting apart hotel
for women.
But a lot of the strong -miuded and short
haired members of the softer sex have unoua.
'ciousy combined to lessen Mr.. Hilton's NOR.
'fication, by making him the subject of thea
'eprobation at public meeting This peiorm-
ance, though differently intended, will have
the effect of vindicating his Judgment in aban-
ioning the project at the Threshold. 1t would
be unfair, of course to assume that the board
BIS who had been quartered in the Stewart i'm
we're the same kind of women who figured in
he meeting, but if there is only a faint resem-
,lance between them it would suffice to rEtiAv
he hurry of the Judge to get out of that
pecisl line of business. Fancy his ventsaV
long the corridors of his Hotel when it was
illed up with six hundred or more of the cham
lions of women's rights of all ages and sizes?
The fate which would over;ake him is prefigured
n the account of what befel poor old Casby
When Pancks unmasked him in the Bleeding
Heart Yard. Who shall say, under the CIR
umstsnces, that his retreat was not wise and
imely? The females who in a coDclave at
)ooper Institute the other evening decorated
dr. Hilton with their censure really did him
ood service, besides bestowisg on him very
considerable amount of free advertising.
1t Is amusing though, that in New York
'henever there is grievance to be aired there
sure to be call for public meeting issued,
r a petition put in circulation. In either case
he promoters of the movement are few in num-
er and not of any appreciate consequence,
hey draw in parties who do have influence
nd when they have gathered sufficient mum.
er Oh potential names they promulgate their