The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-08-29
LAM
BILL NYE ON HOTELS.
THE WELL-KNOWN HUMORlST IN.
DULGES IN SEVERE REMARKS.

The Two Kinds of Guests Who Inhabit
the Average Hotel-A Few Words Con-
corning Diet-SimpIicity Is the watch-
word-In Few Words.
In a western city there stands a restau-
rant that has outside as a sign, under glass
case, a rib roast, slice of ham, and roast
duck that 1 remember distinctly eaving
seen there in 1861 and before the war.
asked an epicure the other day Il he thought
it right to keep those things there year after
year when so many were starving through
out the length and breadth of the land Hss
then straightway did take me Up close 81
that l could see that the food WIS made g.
plaster and painted, as hereinbeforeI se'4
forth and by me anslated, as Walt WI
man would say.
There are two kinds of guests who live at
the average hotel One is the PARTY who
gets up and walks over the whole corps de
hote, from the bald-headed proprietor to the
bootblack, while the other is the meek and
mild-eyed man, doomed to sit at Che table
and bewail the fight of time and the hor.
rors of starvation while waiting for the re-
lief party to come with his food.
belong to the latter class Born, as I
was, in private family and early acquiring
the habit OF eating food that was intended
to assuage hunger mostly, it takes me
a good while to aecustom myself to the
style Of dispeptic microbe used simply to or
nament a bill of fare. Of course it is main
tanned by some hotel men that food solely
for eating purposes is becoming obsolete and
outre, and that the stuff that they put ON
their bills of fare is just as good to pour
down the back of a guest as diet that Is
cooked for the common, low, perverted
taste Of people who have no higher aspira.
tions than to eat their food.
THE STYLE OF HOTEL REFERRED TO.
OF course the genial, urbane, and talented
reader will see at ence the style of hotel
am referring to. It is the hotel that apes
the good hotel and prints bill of fare solely
as a literary effort. That is the hotel where
you find the moth-eaten towel and the bed
ridden coffee. There is wlasre you get but
ter that runs the elevator daytj-'es and
sleeps on the flannel cakes at night. / alse
refer to the hotel where the bell-boy is siII.
ply an animated polisher of banisters, and
otherwise extremely useless 1t is Like wise
the house where the syrup tastes like
the tincture of rhubarb, ano the
pancakes taste like photograph.
The travelling man will call to mind the
hotel to which refer, and he will instantly
name it and tell you that he has never spent
The sabbath there.
Some people can live on cracked wheat,
bran, and SKINNED milk, no matter where
they go, and so they always seem to be per-
fectly happy, but while simplicity is my
watchword, and while am Old Simplicity
himself as it were, I haven't been con-
structed with stomachs enough to success
fully wrestle with these things. / like a
few plain dishes with victuals on them,
cooked by person who has had some ex-
perience in that line before 1 am not so
especially tied to high prices and finger
bowls, for have riser from the common
people, and during the nl-,t eighteen years
of my life had to dress my self was not
always the pamrTred child eS enervating
luxury that | nov am by any raeans So
can subsist for wesEs on good, plain food,
and never murmur or repine; but where the
mistake at some hotels seems to have been
made is in trying to issue bill Of fare
every day that will attract the attention of
literary minds and excite the curiosity of
linguists instead Of people who Sasire to
assuage an internal craving for ExoA I
use the term grub in its broadest and most
comprehensive sense. Too much of our
hotel food tastes like the second day of JAM
uary or the fifth day of July That's the
whole thing in few words, and unless the
good hotels are nearer together we shall
have to multiply our cemetery facilities
Bill Nye in Fsicago News.