The Republican., 1891-11-06
ANeLo-MANIAcs INLoNooN.
The Queer Things They DO and tho Ouoel
Treatment They Get.

who come to London in these days is
that they almost invariably stay at the
old-fashioned hotels conducted upon the
English plan. And not only do they
select those which are merely different
in their style of general management
from American hotels, but eagerly seek
admittance to those whose ways and
customs would have been antiquated in
the reign of Queen Anne and are re-
nowned for their observance of all
those petty rules which make the lives
of the English upper classes ridiculous
in the eyes of the rest of the world, but
without which there are some people
who fervently believe the nation would
not be safe nor the crown secure.
Why Americans should do this is past
comprehension, unless it be the result
of that blind infatuation for everything
English which is the controlling prin-
ciple of the Anglo-maniac's existence.
1t can not be because they like it
really like it. If it be done for the
qualification of curiosity, purely and
only, we might be able to understand
it. If American ladies and gentlemen
of large and unlimited means want to
see what characteristic English hotel
is like, and go to it so to see, it is one
thing But if they go because English
people go to it, and that, therefore, it
must be ''the correct thing to do, don't
you know" it is quite another. l am
afraid the latter motive controls the
whole business. All | can say is it is
YNitifI11 nnI aDnnCh tn hrinrr h11sh of
shame to the faces of real Americans.
1t is not as if there were no hotels in
London conducted on the American
plan, and, as in the days when George
Wilkes wrote Europe in Hurry"
there were nothing but dark and dingy
little English hotels to go to. But there
are dozens of hotels such as are the
rule in America, and under the roofs
of which you would be justified in sup
posing an American lady or gentleman
would feel thoroughly at home. At any
one of the modern hotels any American,
with an American love of comfort might
be cuntentcd. There they can have hot
and cold water, bath rooms, a bar room,
a billiard room, an elevator and table
d hOte, Everything with perhaps Il
slight English tingel which they are ac-
customcd to in America they can have
at these hotels Yet Americans seem
to prefer the opposite. Instead of GO
ing to the sort of hotels they have been
used to all their lives, and their fathers
before them-the sort of hotels which
even some open-minded English people
are generous enough to admit are the
best hotels in the world-they turn
their backs upon them and rush to
Longs, Claridge's and Morlcy's, where
they are no more really at home than
bird would be in cage.
As a rule the better classes in En-
gland do not stay at hotels i'll London.
Some do, of course, but the majority
have town residences of their own, and
when in London during the season they
live in them. But sometimes, when
obliged to be in town when the season
is over, they may go for n night or two
to hotel-and to hotels such as Longs
and Claridges. But they go to hotels
of this kind simply because they prefer
them, and they prefer them because
they have always been accustomed to
them. They would sooner walk up
stairs than be carried up by lift"
they would rather have their bath in a
portable tub by their bedside than in
the most elaborately appointed bath
room; they would sooner shave them
selves than go down to the hotel barber
shop, and are decidedly happier with a
small can of hot water, brought up by
the chambermaid, than they would be
if drawing it themselves from a silver
plated tap. The very things they do
not like in a hotel, Americans do (or
ought toy; the very things they do like
Americans do not Tor ought not to-
Yet is all reversed directly Americans
come to London.
Another thing: 1t costs a lot more
money to stay at Longs or Claridge's
than at the American notels-or rather
those English hotels which are kept on
the American plan. Besides which all
and every of the great swells of high
life. whenever they may be compelled
to 90 to the London hotel. always go to
Longs or Claridge's, or one of the other
leading West End family" hotels. In
which case their arrivals and depar-
lures are carefully chroniclcd and pub
lished in the Fashionable lntelli-
gence" column of the Morning Post
The American-plan hotels do not soar
to this height. TIE great puzzle to En-
glishmen in this respect is why Ameri-
cans want to show off in England.
They can understand their liking to
live well and have nice things, and to
live in good houses as they themselves
do but what they do not comprehend
is why they do not prefer America to
swagger in. English ''swagger," in
its truest sense and meaning, is in
dulged only in England. l allude, of
course, to the best people. They swag-
ger at home because it is perfectly
legitimate that they should. 1t
is their right and privilege and
habit to do swagger things and
to be thought very swagger by
people beneath them 1t is the snobs
who swaggcr when they go abroad on
the astonish-the-natives principle. They
can not swagger at home and so they
90 abroad. On the other hand, the
really swagger people in England are
quiet. unobtrusive and simple when
they travel or go to stay anywhere out
of England. If you see man travel