The People's vindicator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1874-1883, 1881-01-22
An English Waiter.

IN London there is kind Of hotel
OF which we have no counterpart in the
United States. This hotel is usually To-.
Gated in some semi.aristocratic side
street, and wears no badge of its servi.
tude beyond q large, well-kept brass
door-plate, bearing the legend "Joncs's
HOTEL or ''l,rown's HOTEL" as the case
may be; but be it Brown or Jones, he
has been dead at least fifty years. and
the establishment is conducted by Rob-
inson. There is no cofiee-room or public
dining-rOom, or even office, in this ho-
tel; the commercial traveller is an I'M
known quantity there; your meals are
served in Your apartments: the furni-
ture is solid and comfortable, the at
tendance admirable, the cuisine unex-
certionable AMI the bill abominahle.
But for ease, Guictness, and q sort of
1872 odor of responsibility, this hotel
has nothing to compare with it in the
wide world. 1t is here that the inter-
mittent homesickness you contracted on
the Continent will be lifted out of your
bosom; it is here will be unfoIded to
You alluring vistas of the substantial
comforts that surround the private lives
Of prosperous Britons; it is here, above
alt, that YOU will be brought in contact
witt! Smith.
1t was on our arrival in London, one
April afternoon, that the door Of what
looked like private mansion, in D
street, was thrown open to us By 4 boy
broken out all over with buttons. Be-
hind this boy stood Smith. lcall him
simply Smith for two reasons; in the
first place because it is convenient to do
SO, and in the second place because that
is what he called him self. I wish it were
as facile matter to explain how this
seemingly unobtrusivc person instantly
took possession of It's, bullied us with his
usefulness, and knocked US down with
his urhanity. From the moment he
stepped forward to relieve us of our
hand-lnggagc, we were his-and re.
NAMED his until that other moment,
some weeks later, when he handed us
our parcels again, and stood statuesquc
on the doorstep. with one finger lifted
TO his forehead in decorous salute, as we
drove away. All, what soft despotism
was that which was exercised for no
other end than TO anticipate our require
ments-to invent new wants for Us only
to satisfy them! If l anywhere speak
lightly Of Smith, if l take exception to
his preternatural gravity (of which I
would not have him mott " feathcr),
if ! alludc invidiously to his his lifelong
struggle with certain rebclliOus letters
of the alphabet, it is out of.sheer envy
and regret that VIC have nothing
Ike him in America. We have
Niagara, and the Yosemite, and Edi.
sons Electric Light Tor shall have it.
when we get it,, but We have no trained
serving-men like Smith. He is the re.
suit OF older and vastly more complex
social conditions than ours. His train
ing began in the feudal ayes. An at
mosphere charged with machicolatcd
battlements and cathedral spires was
necessary to his perfect Development
that, and generation after generation of
lords and princes and wealthy country
gentlemen for him to practice on. He
is not possible in New England. The
very cut OF his features is unknown
among us. 1t has been remarked that
each trade and profession has its physi-
ognomy, its own proper face. Ii you
look closely you will detect family
likeness running through the portraits
of Garrick and Kean and Booth and Irv-
ing. There's the self.same saber-like
flash in the eye Of Marlborough and
Bonaparte-th same resolute labial ex-
preston. Every lackey in London
might be the son or brother of any other
lackey. Smiths father, and his fathers
father, and so on back to the gray dawn
of England, were serving men, and each
in turn has been stamped with the inn
mutable trade mark of his class. Wait
ers Qike poets) are born, not made;
and they have not had time to be born
in America.-T. B. Afirich, in the 1t.
lQutiC.