Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-04-12
ISSUE A NOVEL ED|CT
New York Fashionable Hotels
Getting Particular
LONE WOMEN GUESTS
WILL NOT BE RECEIVED UNLESS
THEY FORWARD REFERENCES.
Bonifaces Present Argument for Elk
treme Vigilance in Discrimination
Men Expected to Run Amuck.
LONE WOMEN GUESTS
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK, April o. 1904.
Women travelling alone will not be re-
ceived as guests unless they forward to the
house, in advance of their arrival, anex-
ceptionabe references-New York city ref
erences preferred"
Such. in essence, Is the edct which has
been framed up and issued in the form of a
printed and unbreakable house rule ~ a
round dozen of the most fashionable-and,
therefore, to the outlanders the most de-
sirable-hotels of New York.
Such a rule has been in contemplation by
the hotel men of New York for long time.
Several times in this correspondence the
fact has been adverted to that it is diff
cult matter for an unaccompanied woman.
10 matter how obvious her responsibility.
to obtain shelter at the first-rate New York
hotels.
Last summer pair of socially renowned
young matrons of Chicago had a sad time
of 1t in their efforts to gain admittance TO
a number of New York hotels. nor were
their efforts successful. In visiting New
York. they had always been entertained at
the homes of friends well known in the
society Of New York, and so they were not
known at any New York hotel. They arrived
here last year in midsummer, on their way
to Europe to join their husbands for an
automobile tour of the continent.
Their husbands had gone on ahead to
complete the arrangements for the tour.
The pair of Chicago matrons knew that
AL of their New York friends would be
out of town in midsummer, and SO when
they arrived here early In the evening they
paired to one of the hypaenated hotels.
with the idea of spending the night there
before taking ship the next morning.
They were politely but firmly informed by
the clerk that all of the ,.otel's rooms were
occupied-and this. be it remembered. in the
3 days, when the hotels corridors were
all but deserted. They Jared forth in high
t.Idgeon to another hotel, where they were
cooly refused accommodation on the same
plea.
The women were stunningly handsome.
both of them, thing that was decidedly
not in their flvor on such quest. Nightfall
found them still searching for hotel accom-
mediation and dissolved in the tears of
cnagrin, modification and. perhaps, bit
of wrath In their cab.
In sheer desperation they at length told
tie cabby to take them to the headquarters
of the Young Women's Christian Associa-,
tiol. where they were provided for. They
wrote to the Chicago papers of their expe-
rience before sailing, and the Chicago pa
pers joyously lambasted New York and all
its works in consequence
Hotel Mems Defense.
IT. defense Of this sort of thing the New
York hotel keepers seem to have good
Geai on their side. They aver that if they
did not keep up the bars to exclude women
travelling alone and with no sort of refer
ences. their establishments would be ruined
out of hand. They point to the many
blackm ailing enterprises on the part OF
wcmen who, by hook or crook, gain admit
tarce to New York hotels. the stories of
which. when they are Haunted with block
type headlines in the yellow newspapers.
have an injurious effect upon the hosiery.
The hotel men maintain that the ARE:
of twenty male guests of hotel for all
sorts of misconduct and crookedness, and
with all of the accompanying newspaper
notoriety, doesn't have one-twentieth the
dana ging effect upon the tone and char
acter of hotel as the exposure of any SOFT
o. miSbehaV iOr the part of women
guest of the house
A certain proportion of men on their
travels. the hotel men say. are expected 10
go on jamborees and run amuck or get
the mSelves caught in shady transactions.
Women. on the contrary. are expected to
behave at all times and in all circum-
stances. and when woman guest Goes
anything that attracts newspaper attention
II the house the house is simply bouI1 to
lose out in reputable business.
The bonifaces state that they must have
some sort of protection against the hun
dreds and thousands of women of all
grades and classes. high and low. who,
from all sections of the country, make New
York their Mecca when they are DESTROYS
OF having a good time"
They seek out New York for this pur-
pose with the one idea of preserving their
anonymity amid the colossal crowd. A
certain proportion of these women say the
nc tel proprietors. infallibly come to grief
in New York. and get their names in the
papers. together with the names of the
hotels at which they are registered.
Some of them get robbed. while not in
full command of themselves. away from
their hotels. and when they make their
complaints to the police. or the police Jock
them up for the purpose of forcing them
to make their complaints. their identity,
together with the name of the hotel a.
which they put up. is revealed in sensa-
tional and injurious yellow newspaper
yarns.
Others, away from home restraint, apply
themselves with unwise enthusiasm to the
electric buttons in their rooms suites for
the purpose of ordering endless chains of
cocktails or pints of champagne, and a
certain but unvarying percentage of these
are, sooner or later, perforce carried Shrek
ing to hospital wards and their relatives or
friends summoned to their bedsides.
In all such instances the hotels from
which such women are removed are men,
toned in the saffron sheets in a manner
say the hotel people. that is bound to be
harmful.
Effect Of Women's Crimes.