Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-18
BY SAD SEA WAVES.
Gath Tells Why Some Watering Places
Are Not Patronized.
THE TARIFFS ARE TOO HIGH.
Enough to Start Country House is
Consumed in Few Weeks.
LONG BRANCH A TERRIBLE EXAMPLE

Mr. George Alfred Townsend, who has
been at Long Branch, has written letter
for the newspapers, in which he makes 1t
perfectly clear why our watering places are
declining in popularity. He says:
81 said to hotel man who was straining
every nerve to have good season: why
don't you drop your prices to what they
were before the war somewhat? Modify
your bill of fare, and fill your house at 81 so
q day, instead of having only fifty guests at
81 80 day
"I can't do it, said he; it costs me too
much
"Said I: don't see how 1t can cost you
so much. Labor may be higher than before
the war, but I see nothing else that is
higher Beef is no higher. Fish may be
higher, but that is only because you do not
keep boat to 20 out there to the banks
and catch them. A party of your ex-
cursionists came in here yesterday with 400
pounds of fish and gave them to you, and
yet you are buying fish fro,a New York and
send it 200 miles where you are catching
sharks right off your wharf here. Furni-
ture is half the price it was before the war.
Carpets are less than half the price they
were I don't believe that clerical hire Is
very much higher than it was. You may
have to pay your cook more, but that
is because you did not train one of your
sons or daughters to be chef, which is one
of the best salared places in America now.
Twenty-Five Cents for q shave.
"After this conversation I went around to
the barber and he charged me 25 cents to
shave me. The same barber in place an
hour distant from which he came, was glad
to get 10 cents for shave. 1t did not strike
me favorably that he put 15Q per cent upon
the price OF shave. In the hotels these
days the porter never blacks your boots if
you put them outside of the door. Morn
ing after morning you must ring your bell
in order that he may send up and get his 10
cents. The reason is that the proprietor
does not pay him a lump sum to black boots,
but allows him to forage on the guests.
Twenty-Five cents drink for whisky, which
at the highest costs Sc gallon, is somewhat
excessive, particularly when we know what
an immense storage of whisky is in this
country There are four quart bottles of
whisky to gallon, worth at &c, 81 30 bot
tie. How many drinks to bottle the bar
keeper cannot tell, but there should be more
than six.
s'One cause of the high prices at summer
resorts is the inequality Of means and hab-
its among the guests. Here is one man who
will open four bottles of champagne day
for q round of a week, making over two
cases of champagne, with a profit of per-
haps, 81 30 bottle. In few other countries
would this sort of man exist, but as we are
all equal here q rich and liberal man likes
to spend his money for the benefit of his
friends At the same time he Is making it
hard for those who cut out q steady line of
expenditures to keep within their means
Why Steamships Arc Filled.
''The very high prices charged at all our
summer resorts, big and little, large and
inferior, have filled the steamships going to
Europe, and upon these steamers there are
no extravagances of food. The only ex-
travagance know of on a steamship is the
buying of an officers room at double price,
Steamship fare is about the same on all the
lines except perhaps the French line,
which gives wine I should think that
cabin passenger might be fed for a dollar
day upon steamship. Hence, if you can
fill the steamships at $40 day you can
make $8 or So profit over the expense of
subsistence The passenger commonly pays
the table waiter and the bedroom steward,
and also the smoking room steward. If
there be music on board they make q col
lection and pay themselves in that way.
IA passenger at sea saves from one-half
to the whole of his daily incidental ex-
penses on land. He does not have to ride
in carriages, to treat females or friends, to
order game surpers or ANYTHING of that sort.
The highly democratic levelIer called sea-
sickness comes in and makes too much eat
ing out of the question. So $40 day at
sea is the equivalent of S25 ashore at a
watering place. Many of the passengers
aboard nav no such sum as 500 for BERTH
1 am rather of the opinion that $50 comes as
close to the standard cabin fare as any sum
that might be named. The steamships can
extend their cabin service into the second
cabin by merely moving the barrier for
ward, for there is no difference between
second cabin staterooms and first cabin in
size. Not only have the Atlantic steamers
been enlarged in size and in number until
nearly every nation has its steamship line,
but greater and greater steamers are being
built, and the Americans at last have got