The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-24

New York, December 23. 1905.-There | are within the citys gates at the be- ginning of the years great holiday week more sojourners who will nave no hearth of their own on which to burn a Yule log than ever Christmas tide has seen here before. Way-weary travellers, wandering business men, whoever they may be and whatever | their pursuits, there are thousands who have before them the desolate prospect of spending away from home the season most closely associated with the family fireside. Yet the fate or these unfortunates would once have been much worse than it is in these days when the hotels that are their
 temporary abiding-places open the doors of a luxurious home to every wayfarer.
 Twenty or thirty years ago the idea of passing Christmas in a hotel would
 have been fraught with horror. Amer ican hostelries in those times were refuges sought only when no escape from them could be found. Their dis comforts were proverbial, their attrac- tions most conspicuous for their ab- sence. Even Robinson Crusoe would not have envied the habitual American
 hotel dweller then. Today no other
 country in the world offers in its cara
 vansaries for travellers such comfort
 and luxury, and, more important than
 these. so much of the quality of home,
 as ours does.
 The science of hotel housekeeping,
 which has brought about this change
 seems to be an American science Our cooks are still imported from France;
 Italy, Germany, and the rest or the Continent-even the Orient>-are called
 upon to add their contributions to
 those of Uncle Sam's broad acres that
 the hotels hospitable board may lack
 nothing the world has to give; from
 England and it's islands come many of the functionaries and servants who make American public houses the best attended that there are. But the American housewife adds to all these the special qualities the inns Of no other country have. though 10 the guest she is the least conspicuous ng- ure in the entire menage.
 Tn the enormous hotels of every big American city, hotels that are regal in their luxury and beauty, the position of houseE eeper Is a very important one. The household of Windsor Castle does not require more capability in its man agement than do our democratic pal aces" for any and everybody's enter tainment. In fact, so careful is the supervision of every smallest detail in the housekeeper's realm that 1t would he impossible, probably, for a maid to survive in one of these public estab- lishments such an experience as that of the servant whom Queen victoria reprimanded by writing the royal ci- pher in the dust on polished cabinet each morning for three days until IL was discovered by the offender.
 An enormous responsibility rests on the shoulders of the hotel housekeeper for the health and comfort of 500 or a thousand people and for the reputation of an establishment that represents, in many cases. millions of dollars invested. Take. for exam ple, the woman in charge of the in- ternal economy of such a hostelry as the new Hotel Astor here, typical of great twentieth-century houses of its kind She has under her supervision nearly 200 servants; to help her in the mere work of administration requires two assistants; the army which she commands includes a corps of men to do cleaning and another of women cleaners. one of parlor maids. one of chamber maids, and one of maids maids these latter to look after the rooms of their fellow-employes. In the housekeeper's charge are the lin- en room. the house laundry, and the furniture supply r~oms, all the six hum dred and odd guests rooms, forty or fif- ty parlors, and the fifteen or twenty se- mi-public dining rooms. Her servant problem is something that would ap- pal the head of even the most luxu- rfeus private establishment.
 Every morning. the first thing, she makes a tour of the supply rooms on each floor to see that the maids are all on duty. that everything ia in per-