The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-02-24
HOTEL KEYS.
They Are Carried or by Guests Who
FORGET to Give Them Up.

Iney are Sarr1e0 OH Dy Uuestb WIN
Forget to Give Them Up.
"Our key filter is one of the most imAor.
tant men on our staff" said the manager
Of a large New Orleans hotel. "He IS
kept busy every day Of the year, aud
sometimes he is so rushed with w6rk that
he has to call in an assistant. 1t Is no
exa%ggeration to say that he averages
from 25 to 80 keys a day."
"But I would suppose" remarked .
listener, "that even a big hotel would &C.
quire a suficiency Of keys in the course
of time"
$50 it Does" replied the manager, III
the public would only let it keep 'em; but
it won't. 1t 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 Formally is attended to, he is gener-
ally in q rush to get to the depot and Ia
quite apt to forget that he has omitted
to return his key at the clerks desk.
That, at any rate, is the way I account
for so much observation-disclosures on the
subject. The clerk doesn't discover that
the key is gone until the chambermaid
applies for it 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 a duplicate
as quickly as he can. hy-
Formerly the hotels tried to guard
against this innocent kleptomania," the
manager went on, ''by having their keys
made very large and cumbersome and
attaching them to- enormous metal tags,
the idea being to render it impossible to
put them in ones pocket. To that end
they were probably a success, but they
| were such an u~nmitigated nuisance other
| wise, 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,
| however, and in small houses that have
| no locksmiths 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
q modest metal check, stamped with their
address and a request to forward through
the mails if accidentally carried off. All
| that is necessary is to attach a 3 cent
stamp to the tag and drop the key in the
nearest letter box. incidentally I may
say that about one man in so takes the
trouble. But, aside from the room keys
carried away by guests, a vast number Of
all kinds disappear through the mysteri-
Gus channels to oblivion that exist In all
large hotels. They vanish, and that's
the end Of it-keys to furniture, wardrobe
tkeys, closet keys, bathroom keys, keys to
the helps lockers, paddock keys from the
outside storerooms, big coal bunker keys,
gate keys and keys Of every imaginable
size, shape and style. They are contin-
uaily missing and have to be replaced.
If a lost key turns up later, the duplicate.
Is carefully ticketed andN laid away in o
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 SHOWS Of yesteryear."-
| New Orleans Times-D Democrat.