The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-06-21

abuse heaped upon them. and get so IA,
on it, as the hotel men.
The law looks upon the hotel man as q
cross between licensed pirate and a free
insurance company. The public looks upon
The hotel man as one whom 1t is no crime
10 rob. no disnonor to deceive and crown
of glory to get the best of in any possible
way
We supply three-quarters of the com
mlnity, free of charge, with soap, towels
stationery. toothpioks and intellect; and
Vet every man who swells our Golfers by
-pending 10 or Is cents at our bar land,
Incidentally, absorbs 80 cents worth OF
free lunch) thinks we are grasping monopo-
lists and devotes the remainder of his days
N trying to get hunk with us. We are
supposed to be so afiluent that we are ex-
uocted to head of every subscription list.
10 contribute literally to every charity
and to cash every mans check. regardless
of race, color or previous condition of
sarvitude.
Hotel men get caught on bad checks
more often than in any other way. It's
the worst feature of the business.
Men are travelling and don't want TO
carry large sums Of cash. They have
their funds in checks They want the
hotels to be their bankers. OF course
We like to be obiging, but it is hard to dis
eliminate between the honest and the dis
honest, and about once in so often we are
left with a worthless check.
You've probably heard about the con-
,nual peculation in hotels. No one realizes
the extent of it except the hotel men. The
years loss in that way is simply Incredible.
Nobody seems to have any conscience
about robbing a hotel. We can't keep
sugar tongs or oyster forks or after-dinner
coffee spoons. All the silver goes fast.
Towels vanish like magic.
We simply can't buy towels fast enough
to keep up the supply. Travelling men
are particularly appreciative towel COL
loctors. They stock up here in New York
against coming towel stringency in country
towns.
Sometimes think the women are worse
vat that than the men. Yet it was a man
dwho played the limit here; he got away
with q pair OF blankets, cut holes in the
middle OF them, stuck his head through
ne holes. put on his long overcoat and
1ksttoned IL up and started out Of the hotel.
~ahe corners Of the blankets hung down
below his overooat and caught the clerks
eye. We saved the blankets.
1t was a man. too, who tried to steal
our marble parlor clock. The clock weighs
more than one hundred pounds. The
man walked right into the parlor and de-
liberately took this superb timepiece from
the mantel.
There were guests in the room, but they
supposed he was a clock maker on business
bent He lugged 1t up to his room. A
"hambermaid. opening his door suddenly.
saw him grovellng wildly on his stomach
~ the floor and pushing something under
the bed, but she didn't think anything of
it Hotel people aren't easily surprised.
After awhile, the clock was missed and
tlio gossip about it ran through the hotel.
Tho chambermaid remembered the human
l:rle. She trotted up to his room, dived
u"dcr the bed and hauled out the clock.
College boys have a taste for hotel SOU
vrnrs. When the Yale-Princeton football
game used to be played in New York, the
hotel proprictors had to hire men to sit on
all their movable property. The boys
went through the hotels like locusts through
a farm. We didn't even have This way
To The elevator" sign left in the house when
tic invading horde swept on.
4 good many Of the country guests collect
hotel souvenirs Uncle Joshua comes from
n town where he can live on rs cents week,
and when q hotel man asks him to pay s.. so
y day he thinks he's being held up and
robbed. He figures that everything he
orn carry Of won't begin to make him
quits.
But the country guests aren't any lighter
fingered than the city guests. The pro-
priot or OF one of the finest hotels in New
York told me of a lady who came to visit
his wife at their country home last summer.
The maid went up to unpack the visitors
trunks and told her mistress that the trunks
we're full of towels and silver and napkins
and pillow -shams and all that sort of thing,
marked with the names of the different
hotels where the visit rs had been stavirg
The Joke of it was that the gems of the
collection had been gathered from the
hotel OF the man at whose house the woman
was visiting. I've an idea, founded on
bitter experience. that thousands of happy
homes in this great country must be fur
uished chiefly at the expense of hotel
Keepers
Every hotel has its crank boarders. Some
times their crankiness takes the form Of
what is politely called kleptomania. Every
lody in the hotel knows the boarder
lifts things, but If he pays his bills and is
'mobiectionable in every other way, no
scandal is stirred up. There are ways
Of keeping even without hard feelings.
At one of the good old New York hotels
there's an old lady who, for thirty years.
has stolen plate at each meal. She picks
out whatever suits her fancy.
Everybody knows she does it. In fact,
the doesn't try to hide her propensities.
She has her room full Of plates. all over the
wall and the shelves She's not quite
right in her mind, but she's unexceptional
in regard to everything except plates. so
they wink at that little popularity.
The proprietor says shc never tries to
take any of the plates out Of the hotel and
nat she will never go away until she dies
Then he'll get his property back. Mean
while she's a paying patron, and there's
10 Use hurting her feelings over three plates
day.
don't encourage old ladies myself l
TX" them, but not in my capacity of hotel
Proprietor. When they come to stay, l
don't try hard to cater to them. They GO
away.
There's one hotel in New York where |