The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-03-06
HOTEL KEYS.
They Are Carried on by GueEts Who
Forget to Give Them Up.


"Our key filter is one Of the most impor-
tant men on our staff" said the manager
Of large New Orleans hotel. He IS
kept busy every day of the year, and
sometimes he is so rushed with wSrk that
he has to call in an assistant. 1t is no
exaggeration to say that he averages
. from 25 to 30 keys day"
But 1 would suppose" remarked q
listener, "that even big hotel would ac-
quire a suficiency Of keys in the course
Of time"
$50 it does," replied the manager. IF
the public would only let it keep 'em; but
it won't. 1t would astonish anybody not
in the business to know how many guests
walk off with their room keys when they
leave the house. When the average man
gets ready to depart, he packs his valise,
locks his door and then goes direct to the
cashiers wicket to settle his bill. When
that formally is attended to; he is gener-
ally in a rush to get to the depot and is
quite apt to forget that he has omitted
to return his key at the clerks desk.
That, at any rate, is the way l account
for so much observation-disclosures on the
subject. The clerk doesn't discover that
the key is gone until the chambermaid
applies for it to clean up the room, which
is probably an hour or two after the
guest has taken his departure. Then
nothing remains but to call in the key
filter and tell him to prepare duplicate
as quickly as he can.
Formerly the hotels tried to guard
against this innocent kleptomania," the
manager went on, "by having their keys
made very large and cumbersome and
attaching them to enormous metal tags,
the idea being to render it impossible to
put them in ones pocket. To that end
they were probably success, but they
were such an unmitigated nuisance other
wise, and guests complained so bitterly
at the annoyance of handling them, that
they were generally discarded. You will
still find the plan popular in the country,
however, and in small houses that have
no locksmiths on the premises, and only
week or so ago dropped into quaint
little establishment where the keys were
attached to brass disks fully as large as
dessert plates and serrated at the edge
like circular saws.
"At present most Of the big hotels use
a modest metal check, stamped with their
address and request to forward through
the mails if accidentally carried off. All
that is necessary is to attach 3 cent
stamp to the tag and drop the key in the
nearest letter box. incidentally I may
say that about one man in so takes the
trouble. But, aside from the room keys
carried away by guests, vast number Of
all kinds disappear through the mysteri-
Gus channels to oblivion that exist in all
large hotels. They vanish, and that's
the end Of it-keys to furniture, wardrobe
keys, closet keys, bathroom keys, keys to
the helps lockers, paddock keys from the
outside storerooms, big coal bunker keys,
gate keys and keys Of every imaginable
size, shape and style. They are contin-
ually missing and have to be replaced.
If lost key turns up later, the duplicate
is carefully ticketed and laid away in o
drawer set aside for that purpose. But
they seldom turn up. They have gone to
the limbo Of lost pins, last seasons birds
nests and the SHOWS Of yesteryear.
New Orleans Tmes-Democrat.