Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-26

modern style of architecture and construc-
ton, entirely worthy of the purposes for
which they are used. As you may imagine.
they may have added considerably 70 the APP
pearance of the city and have furnished an
example for private corporations and pri-
vate individuals which has been initiated
In practical and satisfactory manner. as
the streets of the business and residence
sections of the city wiz show.
The government iS erecting an imposing
monument on the Paseo de Ia Reforma,
the splendid boulevard which leads to
Chapultepec, which IS to commemorate the
Independence Of Mexico and the founda-
ton OF the republic. The pedestal Is very
nearly completed, and will be surmounted
by a figure splendid of liberty that VIII
remind you of Bartholdfs great work in
New York harbor.
Lack of Good Hotels.
1t may be selfishness but the patient and
long-suffering tourist and the traveller who
visits Mexico on business would appre-
clate a new modern hotel much more highly
than any OF the buildings that have been
mentioned. He would be willing to forego
differentiation dollar opera houses and leg
islative halls If the government would give
him a comfortable place to eat and sleep,
which strange to say, cannot now be found
in the City of Mexico. No place or ITS size
in all the world has such bad hotels and
so many of them, and nowhere are good
hotels so much needed. The city IS al
ways crowded with strangers except In the
summer months; even tonight men and
women travellers are sitting around the
patio of our hotel waiting for the rooms
that will be vacated by those who are
leaving on the late trains and for the IN
different accommodations we get mere:
such as would be expected in town OF
ten or twelve thousand inhabitants, we
have to pay as much as we would be
charged at the best hotels in New York
or London. Half q dozen new hotels have
been opened in Mexico since l was here
Int moi 10 IN
appearance nor accommodations have they
kept pace with the improvements OF the
city in other respects. Every Mexican gem
tIeman win tell you that he Is ashamed or
them, and your American friends will apol-
ogize because they cannot secure you more
comfortable accommodations.
This sltuati ton has always existed Ihere
has never been coed hotel in the City OF
Mexico as long anyone can remember,
although for twenty-five years the govern
ment has been offering liberal inducements
to anyone who will supply the need. 1t
will furnish a site free of cost and exempt
from taxation and from customs duties, all
material furniture and supplies imported
for period of twenty-five years. The oner
is open to any respectable party who Will
erect a modern first-class hotel that Will
cost a million dollars or more. l am quite
sure that similar concessions would be
made to anyone who would build modern
hotel to cost half a million and 1t seems
inexplicable that the proposition should re-
main unaccepted all these years.
The Servant Problem.
There is plenty of capital in Mexico. both
local and foreign. and a million dollars
stock for new hotel ought to be subscribed
In a day. 1 wrote you yesterday about
the building companies that are expend-
ing millions upon millions in erecting mod
ern mansions, and there is an annual agi-
tation of the hotel proposition, but it never
comes to anything The only reasons l
have heard are that there Is no one in sight
who knows how to manage first-class
hotel and that it would be Impossible to
obtain servants to operate one. People
complain that the servant problem is much
more serious here than in any other part
of the world; that the natives no longer
make good domestfcs: that they will not
adapt themselves to modern conditions; that
they cannot be depended upon, and that
it would be impossible to run a hotel with
them Whereas, If colored white serv-
ants were imported from other countries,
they would strike for higher wages as soon
as they realized the situation or would be
bribed away by private families These
complaints may be well founded, but 1t |
seems impossible to believe that the ability
and the enterprise which has built up Mex
leo could not overcome such obstacles.
In the meantime an average of about
thirty tourists arrive In town every day
from the United States, without counting
the large number of people who are brought
here by business from other parts Of Amer
lea and Europe and the local travel. Dur
ing the winter season an excursion party
arrives from the United States nearly every
week, composed OF anywhere from seventy
five to 200 people. There were three such
excursions here this week and the hotels
were so crowded that the passengers had to
sleep In the cars at the railway stations.