its needless expense owing to the wasteful profusion of the management, the tendency to have cast-iron rules for the hours within which a guest is permitted to be hungry, the refusal to make any allowance for absence from meals, and the general preference for quantity over quality.  It is also a pity that baths are looked upon as a luxury of the rich and figure as an expensive extra; it is seldom that a hotel bath can be obtained for less than two shillings.  There would seem, however, to be no reason why the continental table d’hote system should not be combined with the American plan.  The bills of fare at present offered by large American hotels, with lists of fifty to one hundred different dishes to choose from, are simply silly, and mark, as compared with the table d’hote of, say, a good Parisian hotel, a barbaric failure to understand the kind of meal a lady or gentleman should want.  To prepare five times the quantity that will be called for or consumed is to confess a lack of all artistic perception of the relations of means and end.  The man who gloats over a list of fifty possible dishes is not at all the kind of customer who deserves encouragement.  The service would also be improved if the waiters had not to carry in their heads the heterogeneous orders of six or eight people, each selecting a dozen different meats, vegetables, and condiments.  The European or a la carte system is becoming more and more common in the larger cities, and many houses offer their patrons a choice of the two plans; but the fixed-price system is almost universal in the smaller towns and country districts.  In houses on the American system the price generally varies according to the style of room selected; but most of the inconvenience of a bedchamber near the top of the house is obviated by the universal service of easy-running “elevators” or lifts. (By the way, the persistent manner in which the elevators are used on all occasions is often amusing.  An American lady who has some twenty shallow steps to descend to the ground floor will rather wait patiently five minutes for the elevator than walk downstairs.)

Many of the large American hotels have defects similar to those with which we are familiar in their European prototypes.  They have the same, if not an exaggerated, gorgeousness of bad taste, the same plethora of ostentatious “luxuries” that add nothing to the real comfort of the man of refinement, the same pier glasses in heavy gilt frames, the same marble consoles, the same heavy hangings and absurdly soft carpets.  On the other hand, they are apt to lack some of the unobtrusive decencies of life, which so often mark the distinction between the modest home of a private gentleman and the palace of the travelling public.  Indeed, it might truthfully be said that, on the whole, the passion for show is more rampant among American hotel-keepers than elsewhere.  They are apt to be more anxious to have all the latest “improvements”