The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1883-03-31


A large hotel in city like New York
or Chicago is larger thing than most
people stop to think. 1t is, in fact, .
good sized village. Let the Herald, for
. minute, take off the cover and give its
readers q glance down into the beehive.
In the first place, there are from 500
to 800 guests-and sometimes more
tramping through those corridors. laying
on those lounges, punching Footballs on
those tables, and concocting schemes of
wealth and politics in those private par
lors. In the next place, there are be-
tween 800 and 400 employes-many of
them visible--in the Railways, in the
dining-rooms, in the rotunda, and at
every nook and corner; but by far the
greater number are out of sight-in the
cellar, kitchen, laundry, pantries, and
scores of other subterranean places.
There is the population of your village,
to start on.
But let us take tour of the house and
see what may be seen. And first, of
course, we start with the Office, with its
marble floors, gilded columns and pict-
ured ceilings. This is. in hotel par
lance, ''the Office department" and
here, behind the counter, are-the CASH
Ter. the room-clerk, the kew clerk, the
letter clerk, the 'front' clerk--or man
who "fronts' up to the counter with
genial mien to answer questions and do
the clever thinp-and then the night
clerk and his assistant. All these. ex-
cept the two last, have their duplicates,
and the two sets alternate. s.beinp ON
watch six hours at q time. from six
o'clock in the morning until eleven or
twelve at night.
Then we pass up the broad staircase
to the velvet-carpeted halls, parlors and
..rooms''-and all this is the housekeep-
er's department. The housekeeper is
usually a matronly lady of dignity and
broad experience. She has charge of
everything. 80 to speak. above the office
floor. including from thirty to forty
chamberm aids. with a head chamber
maid; fifteen or twenty s.scrubbers,"
with q scrub woman generalissimo, and
from a dozen to fifteen paint cleaners.
also with q captain-about sixty or sew
enty women in all. The chambermaids
make the beds and get a mans boots in
the wrong place; the scrub women wash
the floors. and the paint cleaners keep
the finger marks and coal SCOT off the
doors, not to mention many other places
vulnerable to dirt.
Then there is the head furniture man,
with his corps of from twelve to eighteen
assistants, whose mission in life is to
take down and put up bedsteads and
shove bureaus around, besides half a
dozen window washers. who delight in
risking their lives on the lodges Of six
story windows; two or three furniture
polishers, who carry around chamois-
skin and oiled rags to preserve the gloss
on rosewood and mahogany, and about
the same number OF upholsterers. whose
business is to keep the covers and tassels
on chairs and put casters on dissolute
sofas.
But that Is not all. There is head
painter, too. and dozen or fifteen sub
ordinate painters. who keep the pine
wood from showing through where it
ought not to. and in this class are usually
one or two genuine artists, frescoers and
the like. who, do nothing but put fancy
touches on the ceilings. and keep the
naked man in the big blue cloud over the
rotunda from falling out of the sky or
becoming dustily blended with the fleece
covered lady driving a chariot upside
down.
Then there is a bell-boy at every turn.
He is usually colored, and forms only one
OF dozen or more in his watch. Each
watch has q captain, and they are all
under head bell-man, and they live to
carry up your card to guest, or escort
You to your room, and bring you ice
water and put wet towel on your head
If you happen to be guest
But the porters must not be over
looked, and the reader may take them in
as we come down stairs from the upper
chambers. They are usually able-bodied
white men, any one of them skilled and
muscular enough to balance a shoe
drummer's sample-case on his chin or
walk it up to the sixth story on the point
of his elbow They handle the haOoaoe