The Savannah morning news., 1901-08-31

Z
parallel is found in a compact form,
| with no features missing and many
added, in the modern big hotel that
has reached the highest development
in New York"
One Hotels Capacity.
Neither the bigness nor the COM
pleteness of big hotel is appreciated
! by the patron who finds his interest
satisfied by the accommodations which
1t furnishes. He knows in a general
way that it may be dozen stories high
and several cellars deep, and that the
thousand or more guests are attended
! by servants on every hand, and when
he pays his bill he believes that the
charges are exorbitant. One of these
hotels. which differes from the others
chiefly in degree, represents an invest
ment of S15,000,000. The 1,400 bedrooms
and $50 bathrooms in it are so con-
| structed by a series of inner courts
that each opens to the outer air. 1t has
| several concert halls and theaters,
three great bathrooms and, in addition
TO its public dining room, where, during
D., Horse Show week. for instance, 10000
people are served daily, it has a series
of private dining rooms which are ar
ranged for from ten to 1000 persons.
In the largest ballroom in the hotel was
given one night last winter the Char
! ity Ball, attended by $500 people, to
whom supper was served; and on the
same evening in other parts of the ho-
! tel were in progress two concerts
| dinner of an association of 300 men,
and a dozen smaller dinner parties in
! private dining rooms, each isolated SO
| completely that no one of the 1,500 reg
ular guests need know of it,
Some Hotel Figures.
statistics are not very entertain
inn I.1t CT lf hr-
tells that they alone can tell, and that
| of the supplies is one of them. For
| instance, during the year 1900 one of
| these big hotels spent for meats, $780,
900; for poultry, $113 900; for vegetables,
$4,000; for fruit, $42, 900; for eggs, $12,-
900; for butter, $57 900, and for the flow
ers used in decorations-and there are
| flowers on the tables every day-$30,-
900. The initial investment in silver
ware was s250.OO0. and with the losses
that, charitably, are credited to the
souvenir craze, and the general wear
and tear on table service, about $40,-
900 year is spent in keeping this sup
ply up to the hotels standard. One
New York hotel that suffered severely
from the souvenir spoon and salt cellar
mania adopted, several years ago, the
plan of notifying guests that each
waiter was responsible individually for
all articles on his table, and would
have to make good any loss. This re-
duced the taking of spoons to a rob-
berry of the waiter instead of the hotel,
and even the souvenir hunter has some
! conscience about such a theft. In the
biggest of New York hotels $50, 900 a
year is spent in replenishing the linen,
! and looms in Belfast are busy the year
round for it. The expenses of the other
| hotels for repairs are proportionately
as large, for in the fierce business rival
ry of the times none of them can af-
ford to get shabby
Accounts in Big Hotel.
"Of course the keeping of books for
1,500 patrons of a big hotel who have
all sorts of expenses charged to their
accounts, from the ordinary hotel
charges to kilograms, cabs, flowers, the
alter tickets, packages delivered c. o.
d., and money loaned, and of the 800
employees is a very complicated prob
lem. That, however, is only a part of
the bookkeepers' duties. To prevent
any leakage which might seriously i'm
pair the small percentage of difference
between success and failure, all big
hotels employ a system of checking.
Every order from the dining room
passes through the hands of two or
three checkers before it reaches the
kitchen in the shape of a requisition,
which is held at a voucher for the de-
livery of the portion. After the order
has been filled in the kitchen it is again
inspected by another checker, who
marks off each item on the order
blank. When the bill, with the sepa-
rate items added up, has been paid by
the guest, it goes to the cashier, who
receipts it, tears off, the stub for the
waiter, and files the bill itself. Every
twelve or twenty-four hours according
to the system, the original order in
the guests handwriting and the sew
eral memoranda made by the cashier
and the checkers are turned in to the
auditors department, where they are
compared for the purpose of discover
ing discrepancies. If a mistake is
found there is no difficulty in discov-
ering the responsible person. No sup
plies are given out, except on a prop
erly vouched-for requisition, and even
the chambermaid who wants clean tow
els or the bellboy who wants a clean
shirt has to turn in the soiled cnes in
exchange, and the head laundress en-
tiers the transaction in her books. The
same system prevails in the stewards,
butchers, bar and all other depart
ments which obtain supplies from the
house and retail them to the guests,
and on account of it systematic pecu-
lation of the hotel is almost impossi-
BILE.
Each department is conducted IN
dependently of every other in it's ac-
counts, so that at glance they may be
compared as sources of revenue. In his
books, which are really daily logs OF
the business, the proprietor can lind a
record of the number of dinners served
on any day, of the receptions and ban
quets of the coal burned and electric
light used, of the stock on hand and
repairs made, of the weather, and, in
fact, of every detail of the thousand
or more that go to make up the bust
ness of running a big hotel. An audit
company is constantly at work on the
books. and the proprietor of The most
talked about hotel told me that within
two hours he could tell exactly where
he stood financially. That is, he would
know to a penny just what his profits
were up to that hour. how much stock
he had on hand, and how many bills
he had outstanding"
The Chef and His Minions.
For his service the chef of big no.
tel may receive $4,000 a year. big
salary for cooking, but by no means
but of proportion to his value to the
hotel He is supreme in his workshop,
the kitchens, which are large brilliant
ly lighted and scrupulously clean rooms,
with hardly a suggestion in the air
of broiling and baking and roasting
and frying that is going on all around.
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