Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1891-07-18
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH INNS
Wakeman's Description Of these
Famous Hostleries.
Many are Low and Dingy ans Very Uninvlt-
ing--IIow the Weary Traveller Is Enter
tained-- Muscuiar Chambermnids--A
Letter of Interesting Descriptions.
Icopyrighted 1871.

NfhnoNp VI fbstf' III Ink iahh shiiu ''ot-
land in which guests find comfort.
One class comprises the great hotels OF
such cities rs London, Liverpool, Glas,
gov and Edinburgh, which have be-
come comfortable, during the past
quarter OF century, in proportion to
their adoption of American hotel man
ners and improvements. The other
class is the humble and simple hotels
OF remote villages, OF almost unknown
dales and glens, of bonnie old Scotch
clachans and of rosc-embowered En-
glish hamlets, where ore thanks God,
II he have come by design or accident,
for the tender repose and blest rest To
be found among them.
There is another class. Its inns are
the hotels the average traveller, com
mercial or uncommercial is compelled
TO patronize, and which lay in wait
for the doomed tourist from Land &
End to John o'Groat's They are sim
ply places where one for n necessary
period resigns himself to captivity, sur
-vtillance and extortion. The un-
indignation cvinced at protest against
either, are elements of humor in the
situation, il those may exist where
there seems only opportunity for down
right despair.
The effusiveness Of your welcome at
one OF these inns is alarming. The
next instant you have cause for alarm,
for with queens warrant YOU could
Hn1 slf.a1 of that
gaseous welcome From dozen TO "a
score of grinning jumping, wrig-
CLING, vociferous beings grab and
grasp and gurglc at you un-
til You are inside the door and outside
the flaw, and your belongings have
been wrenched from you, and yourself
left as lone as is silence between the
stars. Then IL you find them, or any
body that. without ransom, will ae-
knowledged to having ever before seen
them or you in that blessed inn, you
possess genius and great brave and
patient soul.
There is the landlord, riotous in OBJ
sequiousncss; the landlady, beaming
with smiles. but measuring your capa-
city for imposition with unerring ac-
curacy the head waiter, a superior
IL
French advcnturer in full dress, who
performs all offices with scorn. but
now standing there with bland pernis-
sibility in his face for your coming
trial; the porter and the second porter,
who grin at you this once to ever after
grind, boots" that sodden. grimy
slave who never sleeps and who
is ever at war with all
other souls within the place; ''but-
tons, in uniform as TO clothing, but in
permanent gloom as u face, save when
you arrive and he lights up with JOY at
the misery he alone can canse you; "a
half dozen odorous stablemen, who
each watch their chance to leer and
pull their forelocks at you i'm effort To
establish secret recognition OF what
you may expect il you do not placate
them; the bar.maid, who knows, YOU
know, that it is she alone who supplies
the awful voluminousness and minute
ness of that inevitable bill, and who
giggles and gyrates as she sees your
own writhing recognition of what is to
come; and "a number of muscular cattle
called chambegTnaids, who in n trice
have settled the manner in which you
shall be racked and wrecked within the
precincts OF the dank. clammy den to
which You are certain TO be consigned
In a moment the cold realism of your
situation has come. You are inside q
low, dark, narrow hall aud alone At
one side is the bar, an affair constructed
like an American railway station
newsstand, which Is shut out from
sight whenever the bar-maid wishes
TO yawn, the landlady desires to
abuse her Boniface, or your own
objurgations become too numerous and
decisive. Opposite is the Coffee
Room" a long, low, cheerless place,
with q long, low, cheerless table.
spread with n cloth ever decorated
with misplaced matter. III you have
the good fortune to finally get any
thing TO eat in the place, you will have
TO partake of IL with n blowsy tourist
possessing one sofa, drunken guest
snoring upon another, crowd of
drovers, of politicians or of the con-
stabulary or military, swigging ale or
stout beside you. and the whole room
Us blue as u channel-fog with the
smoke of tobacco. Directly you are in
a prison-like hall The head waiter is
gone; the porter has grabbed your
luggage and disappeared; boots" and
'buttons" have vanished; landlord,
landlady and bar-maid have been
swallowed up in the inconeeivable
somewhere behind the bar; stablemen
and chambermaids are whisked into
undiscoverable retreats Great, gloomy
doors, black mouldy walls, hard, for
bidding ceilings, alone confront you
You bang Your knuclles against the
bar window. Landlord, landlady or
barmaid, by and by appears, giving
you look of paincd surprise, and then
disappears. You call, .sPorter."--
"Boots.'' - .'Buttons," ''Chamber-
maid.' There is not even reproving
glance now in answer. You call and
bang some more. This time echo alone
reproves you. Cropping about the
place, yon snatch at a bel cord big as
your wrist, with tasscl rs big as your
head. This you tug ut very violently.
The clang and clamor of the bell, which
you cannot locate, fill the whole place.
The bar window comes mp with a slam,
goes down with IA slam and an express
sion OF disgust and dismay Is caught
escaping between the slams. Then,
pecring mp from dark stairways, and
peering out OF quickly opened doors,
are seen faces full of grave surprise;
you hear all about You exciamations of
disgust and dismay; and in another in
slant all these faces are gone, and you
are again alone. Then you talk out
loud TO yourself for awhile in rude
American words.
Streng you return to the big
bell cord. You jerk and jerk at that.
You find othcc bell cords and jerk NJ
them Nearly all OF them ring bells,
bells Of srich awful size and sound, and,
in instances, such startling nearncss,
that you are scared ut your own dire
work aud arc rather relieved that no.,
body appears to avcngc your cali
umitous proceedings For q tima you
exist in q dax,d, dark. silent spell that
has come npon yon, bnt finally you
cannot bear your isolation longer. You
determine on Investigation at the risk
OF your actions being misconstrned,
and yourself arrested and flung into
British bastilc. Even there, you re-
hect. would at least exist "a motive for
your being looked after by some
body. You try all the doors and
windows Of the bar, softly at
first but gradually to an earn
est and burglnrious degree. Thea
vfs,, go, al tia lark hill