Marion Harland's Complete Etiquette

<h2>CHAPTER XXV<br/> <small>HOTEL AND BOARDING-HOUSE LIFE</small></h2> <p class="drop-cap">THERE is no better place than a hotel in which to study the manners, or lack of manners, of the world at large. It is here that selfishness is rampant, and unselfishness hides its diminished head.</p> <p>Before we discuss the ethics of hotel life it will be well to give a few general directions as to what one does from the time one enters the door of the building which will, for a long or short time, be his place of abode. He proceeds at once to the office, makes known his desires with regard to a room or rooms, and writes his name in the register handed to him by the clerk. He is then assigned to his room, and a page directs him thither, carrying hand luggage. To this page he hands his trunk-check, and the trunk is soon brought to his room.</p> <p>Upon the inside of the door in every hotel room is tacked a set of rules of the house, and these are in themselves sufficient to instruct our uninitiated traveler in most of what is expected of him. He<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</SPAN></span> here learns that the hotel is not responsible for valuables left on the bureau or table of the room, that the guest is requested to keep his trunk locked, and to lock his door upon going out, and to leave his key at the office; that valuable papers and jewelry can be left in the safe of the hotel; at what hours meals are served and so on. All these directions the considerate person will observe. None of them is unreasonable. There are many things for which no printed rules are given which are none the less essential to the correctness of demeanor on the part of a guest.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">AT THE HOTEL TABLE</div> <p>Loud talking is one of the things to be avoided. One must remember that in a hotel more than in any other place is the warning of the Frenchman likely to be proved true,—“The walls themselves, my lord, have ears!” Each room has another room next to it, and the partitions are thin. The transoms all open upon a general hall in which can be heard any loud remark spoken in any one of the rooms. If one does not discuss affairs one wishes kept secret, one must bear in mind the fact that other people may be annoyed while resting, reading or talking, by fragmentary bits of conversation wafted to them. At the hotel table one must also bear this in mind. Loud talking in a public place stamps the speaker as a vulgarian, or a person<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</SPAN></span> who has seldom been outside of his own home, and has never learned to modulate his voice.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>On entering a hotel dining-room, the traveler pauses until the head waiter, or one of his assistants, indicates a table at which he may sit. If this table be too near the radiator or window, or otherwise undesirable, the guest may courteously ask if he can not be placed in another locality. When a man and a woman are together the man enters the room first, and leads the way to the table, on the first occasion of their taking a meal at the hotel. After that, if they occupy the same table each day, the woman enters the room first and proceeds to her seat, followed by the man. He, or the waiter, draws back her chair for her and seats her. The man, of course, remains standing until she is seated.</p> <div class="sidenote">GIVING ONE’S ORDER</div> <p>The menu card is handed to the man, with a pad or slip of paper and pencil. Upon this, after discussion with the woman, he writes his order. As a rule he orders the entire meal, except the dessert, at once. The sweets can be decided on later.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>I wish I could impress on the minds of persons in a hotel that it is wretched form to criticize audibly the viands set before them. The person sitting<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</SPAN></span> near you is not edified to hear you remark that the soup is wretched, the beef too rare, the coffee lukewarm. If you have any fault to find, do so to the waiter and in such a tone that the other guests can not hear it.</p> <div class="sidenote">AVOID FAULTFINDING</div> <p>Above all, do not scold the waiter for that for which he is not to blame. He does not purchase the meat, nor does he fry the oysters. Show him that you appreciate this fact, and ask him politely if he can not get you a better cut, or oysters that are not burned. Some persons seem to think that it elevates them in the opinion of observers if they complain of what is set before them. They fancy, apparently, that others will be impressed with the idea that they are accustomed to so much better fare at home than that they now have that it is a trial for them to descend to the plane on which others are eating. The fact of the case is that the person who is accustomed to dainty fare, and to even-threaded living, is too well-bred to call the attention of strangers to the fact.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>While we are on this subject it would be well to remind the thoughtless person that when he dines with a friend at that friend’s hotel, on his invitation, he is a guest. It is therefore rude for him to comment unfavorably on the dishes on the table. When, under such circumstances, a guest says to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</SPAN></span> his host <i>pro tem.</i>, “My dear fellow, they do not give you good veal here!” or, “Are you not tired of the mean butter you eat at this hotel?” he is criticizing in an offensive manner the best that his host can offer him, since he has no house of his own in which to entertain. The guest should act as if it were his friend’s private table, and forbear to criticize fare or service.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">HOTEL TIPPING</div> <p>One of the often unconsidered items of expense in hotel life is the “tips” that one must give. In no other place is one’s hand so often in one’s pocket. A porter carries a bag, and he must be tipped; another carries up a trunk, he must be tipped; one rings for iced water, and the boy bringing it expects his ten cents; one wants hot water every morning, and in notifying the chambermaid of this fact, must slip a bit of silver into her palm. The waiter at one’s table must be frequently remembered, and the head waiter will give one better attention if he finds something in his hand after he shows the new arrival to a table, and, of course, on leaving, one will also give a fee. So it goes! When, however, one is staying by the week at a hotel, “tips” need be given only once a week,—unless some unusual favor is asked. We may rebel against the custom, and with reason. But as not one of us can alter the state of affairs, it is well<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</SPAN></span> to accept it with a good grace, or reconcile one’s self to indifferent service.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">CHILDREN IN A HOTEL</div> <p>The matter of children in a hotel is one on which so much has been said and written that there is little left to say. At the first glance one is tempted to resent the fact that many hotel proprietors object to having children accompany their parents to the public table, and that some even demur at their presence in the house. Child-lovers have said bitterly that the celestial “many mansions” seem to be the only abodes in which the little ones are welcome,—and all these opinions have a great deal of truth on their side. But it is not until one has undergone the annoyance of ill-governed children in a house where there are no restrictions enforced on them that one sees the other side of the shield. One large boarding-house at a fashionable summer resort is popular to mothers of large families because the proprietor does not object to children. A guest there last season decided that if that were the case said proprietor had no nerves. She soon learned that childless guests declined to stay at the place. Children raced up and down the long corridors, screaming as they went; they played noisily outside of bedroom doors; they ate like little pigs at the hotel tables. In short, they<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</SPAN></span> made the house a purgatory for all except other children and their mothers.</p> <div class="sidenote">TWO TYPES OF MOTHERS</div> <p>There are two types of mothers in this land of ours that are greatly at fault. One is the mother who hands the management of the children over to a nurse or several nurses, and she is, of course, the rich woman whose children see her seldom, and that not often enough to bother her. The other type is the woman who has nerves toward all things except her own children’s noise. She is such a doting parent that she is, to all appearances, blind and deaf to the fact that her own offspring drive to the verge of insanity other “grown-ups” with whom they come in contact. Verily the American youngster is having everything his own way in private and public nowadays! Dwellers in hotels are to be pardoned if they beg that he be kept in private until his parents learn to govern him, and by thus doing, show mercy to other people.</p> <p>While the rules that govern propriety should be adhered to everywhere, there is no other place where they should be more strictly observed than at the summer hotel, or the boarding-house of a fashionable watering-place. It may not be an exaggeration to state that there are few decent places where they are more openly disregarded. With the trammels of city life one seems to lay down<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</SPAN></span> an appreciation of the fitness of things generally. The free intercourse, the rapidly-made acquaintances, the mingling of many sorts of peoples in the huge caravansary—tend to make us cast aside conventionalities. Husbands, running down from the city for a Sunday with their wives, find them absorbed and happy in the gay life about them, and quite sufficient unto themselves when the husbands return to counting-room and office on Monday morning. There is always a class of men who, having nothing else to do, are habitués of the summer hotel, where they flirt with the wives of other men and make themselves generally useful and talked about.</p> <div class="sidenote">AVOIDING GOSSIP</div> <p>There may be no harm in all this sort of thing, but it is well for the discreet maiden and matron to avoid giving any cause for the enemy to blaspheme,—in other words, for the gossip to make herself busy and dangerous. To this end, late hours in shaded corners of verandas, moonlight sails and walks, and beach-promenades well on toward midnight, are to be shunned. While these may be innocent per se, they give rise to scandal. The young girl may always have a chaperon to whom to refer as to the proprieties, but it is not the young girl who is most talked about. The married woman whose husband lets her have her own way is a law unto herself, and she must be careful<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</SPAN></span> not to make that law too lax. It takes very little to set silly tongues wagging; it takes months and years to check the commotion they have made.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">PROMISCUOUS FRIENDSHIPS</div> <p>Promiscuous intimacies at summer resorts are a great mistake. Unless a woman knows all about a fellow guest, she should not get into the habit of running into her room, or of talking with her as with a lifelong friend. She may be pleasant toward all, and intimate with none.</p> <p>It is a well-known fact that there is no other hotbed of gossip equal to a hotel or a boarding-house. Women, released from the cares and anxieties of housekeeping and home-making, turn their time and thoughts to fancy work and scandal. Each arrival runs the gantlet of criticism and comment, and afterward becomes the subject of “confidential” conversations upon veranda and in parlors. Here, as everywhere else, work that will occupy the mind is a sovereign cure for this habit. One can usually sit in one’s own room, but if one does not, there is always a book to be read in parlors or on the veranda, which will show the would-be gossip or retailer of scandal that one is too much occupied to engage in conversation.</p> <div class="sidenote">TWO GOOD RULES</div> <p>Certainly in a hotel no one lives unto himself, but each must consider the comfort of his neighbor. Such a semi-public life is at the best a poor<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</SPAN></span> substitute for a home existence. Two rules to be observed will make other rules of hotel or boarding-house etiquette sink into insignificance compared with their importance.</p> <p>First: Do nothing that will make others uncomfortable.</p> <p>Second: Pay attention to your own business, and pay no attention to that of other people.</p> <hr class="chap" /></div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />