The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-02-24
AN IMPORTANT HOTEL ADJUNCT
The Key Filter nm Emp1oye Whose
Services Are Valuable

(From the New Orleans Times Demovrat)
Our key filter is one of the most i'm
portant men on our staff said the man
ager of large New Orleans hotel. He is
kept busy every day OF the year, and
sometimes he is so rushed with work
that he has to call in an assistant. 1t is
no exaggeration to say that he averages
| twenty-five TO thirty keys a day"
But / would suppose" remarked lis
tener, that even a big hotel would ac-
quire a sufiiciency of keys in the course
OF time"
so 1t does" replied the manager. IF
the public would only let IL keep EN-; but
it won't. II 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 yalise.
locks his door. and then goes direct to
the cashiers wicket to settle his bill.
When that formality is attended to he is
generally in a rush to get to the depot.
and is quite apt to forget that he has
omitted to return his key to 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 chamber
maid applies for 1t 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.
Formerly the hotels tried to guard
against this innocent kleptomania," the
manager went on, by having their keys
made very large and cumbersome. and at
taching them to enormous metal tags, the
idea being to render il impossible to put
them in cne's pocket. To that end they
were probably a success. but they were
such an unmitigated nuisance otherwise
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. how
ever, and in small houses that have no
locksmfth on the premises, and only a
week or so ago I dropped into a 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 acct
dentally carried OFF. All that is neces-
sary is to attach a three-eent stamp TO
the tag and drop the key in the nearest
letter box. incidentally I may say that
about one man in fifty takes the trouble.
But aside from the room keys carried
away by guests a vast number of all
kinds disappear through the mysterious
channels tc oblivion that exist in all
large hotels. They vanish. and that's the
end of it-keys to furniture. wardrobe
keys, bathroom keys, keys to helps lock-
ers. paddock keys from the outside store
rooms, big coal bunker keys, gate keys,
and keys of every Imaginable size. shape,
and style. They are continually missing,
and have to be replaced. II a lost key
turns up later, the duplicate is carefully
ticketed and laid away in 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 snow of yesteryear."