The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-04-06
HOTELS.
What One American Expert Has to Say
About Them.
rpR. LYMAN ABBOTT, IN oUTLOOK.1

I there Is no bar but IN Wnlcn wine anu
| beer can be ordered with the meals,
is more worthy to be called a tenn
perance hotel than a hotel, such as l
have seen in Maine, in which no wine
or beer can be ordered with the
meals, but in which there is a bar in
the basement where one can get
stand-up drinks at pleasure.
But if there are no bars in the
| hotels in Germany. there is no dearth
of places in which to satisfy thirst.
| Restaurants, cafes, gardens and
| drinking shops abound. There is
every variety for every kind of taste.
do not know what the statistics
| show, but the impression on the care
less traveller is that in the larger
| cities there is as great proportion of
| drinking places as in American cities
| of equal size, but different in charac-
| ter. You may go into what would be
an ice cream saloon and order either
| an ice, a bottle of beer or a bottle of
| wine. You may so into a garden and
| find the seats-not benches, but
I chairs-ranged round little tables and
a waiter ready to receive your order
for a glass of milk (Which, by the
way, is quite common) or a glass of
beer. You may find on a balcony or
| piazza of a hotel restaurant multi
tudes of little tables and multitudes
of busy walters serving eating and
| drinking guests. Or, I suppose
! did not try the experimentation may
20 into what externally looks like an
| American saloon and take your drink
standing. The Germans are always
eating, yet do not gluttonize, and al
ways drinking, yet are never drunk.
In America We eat and drink as we
| nut coal on the furnace to keep the
| machinery going, in Germany eating
and drinking is an end in itself. The
people eat and drink as one may read
a book-not to get something out of
it for future use, but for the mere en-
joyment of reading. There is at
least one thing to be said in favor Of
this: It is wholly inconsistent with
the spirit of grab and gobble which
one often sees at our American lunch
counters in a business street in bust
ness hours.
The public rooms characteristic Of
our great American hotels are in Ger
many conspicuous by their absence.
If there is a lobby, 1t is not used as a
lounging place. There is often a
reading room and sometimes a ladies'
parlor,' but they are both quiet and
retired. I do not think if all the lob
bies Of all the hotels in Germany were
united in one great lobby and all the
guests in all the German lobbies were
turned into it, they would present
any scene of dress and display, lazy
luxury and strenuous discussion COM
parable to what may be seen in any
one of half a dozen hotels in New
York City or Chicago. In the smaller
hotels there is a small lobby which
contains a chair or two, a desk and
sometimes an Office opening out Of it.
In this lobby or in the adjoining
Office is always to be found the por-
tier. When your cab drives up to the
hotel, the PORTER comes out In person
to greet you. You are welcomed as a
guest. If you are wise, you leave
your baggage in the cab and ask to
see what rooms they have. You see
them, inquire the price, decline and
drive on to try elsewhere, or accept
} and in ten minutes are settled and
are at home. In the smaller hotels
the proprietor is apt to take his din
ner with his guests or, if not, to come
into the diningroom at the dinner
hour and greet them with a bow. In
one hotel the proprietor sent person
ally a flower to every lady at the Sun
day dinner and, if for any reason she
could not BE- down to dinner, the
flower was sent to her room. When
you go away the porter, the head
waiter and perhaps the proprietor,
are present to bid their guests good
bye. They are not always after tips.
At one German hotel where tips were
forbidden, as we drove away we
caught a glimpse of three Of the wait
ers who had served US standing at the
window smiling to is their adieux.