No, you must not neglect the Preface; and you must not neglect the Appendix on Hotels.  As sometimes happens in works of a philanthropic character, Mr. BRADSHAW’S Appendix has a human charm that is lacking in his treatment of his principal theme, the arrival and departure of trains.  To the careful student it reveals also a high degree of organisation among his collaborators, the hotel-managers.  It is obvious, for example, that at Bournemouth there must be at least one hotel which has the finest situation on the South coast.  Indeed one would expect to find that there was more than one.  But no; Bournemouth, exceptionally fortunate in having at once the most select hotel on the South coast, the largest and best-appointed hotel on the South coast and the largest and most up-to-date hotel on the South coast, has positively only one which has the finest position on the South coast.  Indeed, there is only one of these in the whole of England, though there are two which have the finest position on the East coast.

How is it, we wonder, that with so much variation on a single theme such artistic restraint is achieved?  It is clear, I think, that before they send in their manuscripts the hotel-managers must meet somewhere and agree together the exact terms of their contributions to the book.  “The George” agrees that for the coming year “The Crown” shall have the “finest cuisine in England,” provided “The George” may have “the most charming situation imaginable,” and so on.  I should like to be at one of those meetings.

This is the only theory which accounts for the curious phrases we find so frequently in the text:—­“Acknowledged to be the finest”; “Admittedly in the best position.”  Who is it that acknowledges or admits these things?  It must be the other managers at these annual meetings.  Yes, the restraint of the collaborators is wonderful, and in one point only has it broken down.  There are no fewer than seventeen hotels with an Unrivalled Situation, and two of these are at Harrogate.  For a small place like the British Isles it seems to me that this is too many.

For the rest, what imagery, what exaltation we find in this Appendix!  Dazed with imagined beauty we pass from one splendid haunt to another.  One of them has three golf-courses of its own; several are replete with every comfort (and is not “replete” the perfect epithet?).  Here is a seductive one “on the sea-edge,” and another whose principal glory is its sanitary certificate.  Another stands on the spot where TENNYSON received his inspiration for the Idylls of the King, and leaves it at that.  In such a spot even “cuisine” is negligible.

On the whole, from a literary point of view, the hydros come out better than the mere hotels.  But of course they have unequalled advantages.  With such material as Dowsing Radiant Heat, D’Arsonval High Frequency and Fango Mud Treatment almost any writer could be sensational.  What is High Frequency, I wonder?  It is clear, at any rate, that it would be madness to have a hydro without it.