Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-02-06
HOTELS IN AMERICA.
Reflections of an English journal, Suggest
I'd hM The Rccenk TfnnedM at Mi[tr0Hkee.

Reflections of an English journal, Suggest
I'd Or the Recent Tragedy at Mitwduhee.
The London Standard, discussing the
burning of the Newhall house and the con-
sequent loss of life at Milwaukee on the
remarks: The Newhall house, like all
large structures in Milwaukee, was built of
the peculiar cream colored bricks so large
ly made in Wisconsin, and which forms
one of the chief exports of its commercial
metropolis and principal port on Lake
Michigan. For years the hotel has not
been considered very safe, both on account
of its faulty plan of construction and of
the combustibility of its materials. The
wonder is how such hotels as the Newhall
house so long escape fire. In every
large city in the United States there are
numbers of these great lodging houses,
and SO thoroughly is hotel life a character
istic of the population of America that a
town which in England would be content
With some old-fashioned little inn has a
palatial establishment, administered by
clerk magnificent in diamond studs and
phalanx Of negro walters, vi \ profnse
table d'hote four times day. and an array
of bedrooms and parlors'' which it would
be hard to match out of London and Paris.
Even the backwoods village, rarely visited,
except by the prairie farmer or the lum-
herman, would scorn to shelter the passing
traveller in the alehouse with the four-post
bed, the sawdusted tap-roDm, and the I'M
varying menu of bacon and eggs, or
mutton chop if the stranger lights on
''killing day." which serve well enough
/ for the needs of score Of English towns
twice its size. Mushroom settles" compete
with each other for the glory of having the
''biggest hotel land such is the eagerness to
live l. a large building that the proprietor
of the Metropolitan hotel in-say Their
| mopyl@ might abandon any idea of the
best public patronageif a rival rears the
Garfield house, with fifty more bedrooms,
an entrance hall twice as large, and a din
| ing room three times AZ gaunt. The aver
| age American is not so much concerned
about the quality of hotel as its size, and
a traveller afler few months experience
of this trait of character is almost ashamed
to confess, in reply to the inevitable ques-
| ton, that he is staying in vast inn which
can only accommodate 600 people,
when in the very next street
ing of the painter which he is as ured
can make up 1000 beds. The Difficult y
of managing these ''help' when got, dyve
bachelors, yonng married people, small
families, to ''board" regularly in hotels.
Here they may obtain every luxury and
convenience, except quiet home life, for
less than it would cost them to keep an es-
Enlistment; and even physicians, dent SIS,
| lawyers and other professional men will
often have their offices in such places.
Hence the curious social phenomena of
immense inns in comparatively snail
towns, and of half the population of the
| place meeting every evening in one of
those great, glitetring, over-heated dining
rooms, which from Portland, in
Maine, to olympia, in Washington terrific
| ry, seem to be built on one identical mod
| ell.
In England we also are beginning to
build hotels on the American scale and
| plan; and though we are confident that the
proprietors of these monster establish
| ments have net forgotten the safety of
| their patrons in over-anxieiy for their
comfort, the latest American disaster
ought to set them thinking whether, in the
event of a similar fatality, they a.e any
better prepared for coping with it. Thea
tiers and warehouses are the most frequent
victims of fire, though it must only be the
care and constant vigilance exerc ID
which prevent some of our large, old fash
toned, and viciously constructed hotels
from sharing the same fate. Candles
or exposed gas jets are the rule: there
can be no prohibiting reading in bed,
and an ordinance which extinguishes
lights at certain hour, as in passenger
vessels, is of course, impracticable- With
so many potentialities to choose from, the
risk of well-dined guest overturning the
candle, ignitipg his clothes at the gas, or
falling asleep with lighted cigar in his
mouth, may be left out of account. The
safeguard would be to have hotel erected
in blocks, like st. Thomas hospital. But
where ground is valuable this is impossible.
The next best thing to do-and this the
insurance companies and the licensing
magistrates should see to-is that there
are ample means for extinguishing fire;
that the building is reasonably fire proof
though the phrase is deceptiye-and that
escapes aud easy exits are provided by the
architect and proprietors.