Hotel bill

“ If you are content with an hotel of the country, of which there is a large choice, you may have three good meals a day and a bedroom for six and a half francs, with a considerable reduction for families. Even at the fashionable hotels on the Digue the price is only eight or nine francs; and when you have paid your hotel bill you are out of all danger of extravagance, for there is literally nothing to spend money upon. Your bathing machine costs you sixpence. There are no pleasure boats and no wheeled vehicles for hire in the place, and no excursions if there were; shops there are none ”

“ But, to say the truth, there is a degree of the same kind of annoyance in an American hotel, although it is not so much an acknowledged custom. Here, in the houses where attendance is not charged in the bill, no wages are paid by the host to those servants—chambermaid, waiter, and boots—who come into immediate contact with travellers. The drivers of the cars, phaetons, and flys are likewise unpaid, except by their passengers, and claim threepence a mile with the same sense of right as their masters in charging for the vehicles and horses. ”

“ One must pay for his meals as well. Two people at most of the big hotels pay a minimum rate of about thirty-five dollars a day for the two—which is about the amount from which the same people would have to separate themselves at any of the big New York or Chicago or Boston or Washington hotels by the time they had finished paying for their food. But if one wishes to be smart at Palm Beach, one mustn’t lunch or dine at the hotel where one’s meals are included on his bill. ”

“ The system of extravagant feeing and still more our readiness to pay what is asked us instead of bargaining and haggling over prices as the natives do, and as is confidently expected of any sane human being, has so demoralised service and the native scale of prices that it is fairly impossible to obtain the ordinary necessities for which one expects to pay in the hotel bill, without giving needlessly large fees to the servants who happen to be in your attendance ”

“ The hotel omnibuses never charge less than 1 franc per person; and with luggage it is usually 11⁄2 francs. If a party consist of four, it has thus to pay 6 francs or 5s. for the drive to the hotel, which is expensive; and it is much cheaper, if there be not heavy luggage, for which the cabs are seldom adapted, to take a cab. This cannot easily be done at leaving the hotel, as the guests are expected to employ the hotel omnibus, which is charged as matter of course in the bill.
We experienced at Rome a curious species of imposition. ”

“ All the viands at the Adelphi were of the best description, and admirably cooked, but the bill of fare was limited to very few articles. A sight of one of the printed bills of our great American hotels would have driven the waiter crazy, while the utter disregard of time, or rather of the value of time, in an English hotel, is the first thing that strikes a newly-arrived American and stirs up his irritability. ”

“ There was quite a galaxy of stamps affixed, making a total charge of ninety-five kopecks—less than fifty cents gold value. The hotel assumed the payment of this fee, and, adding a trifle for the services of its “representative,” or “agent,” or “man” (the small boy) , inserted in my bill a lump item of one ruble fifty kopecks on “passport” account. And I advise all American tourists to transact this kind of business by proxy instead of wasting droschky-fares in unproductive visits to the chief of police. ”

“ Owing to the locomotive habits of the people, the hotels of America are more extensive and more systematized than ours. One of their features is the system of charging a fixed sum per day, which covers all the annoying extras of English hotel bills. ”

“ I said, “the innkeeper is bound to provide safe stabling for the horses of his guest, and if any evil betide the animals from being improp{120}erly tied, or the stalls being in bad repair, full compensation may be recovered. [308] He is responsible from the moment he receives the quadrupeds until they leave; even after the owner has paid his bill and his man is harnessing them to go; [309] and, as a rule, the statutory laws limiting the liability of hotel-keepers do not apply to horses or carriages.” ”

“ Broadwood, the celebrated piano manufacturer, loaned a piano to M. Hababier, who was staying at a hotel. The court held that, as it was furnished to the guest for his temporary use by a third party and the innkeeper{147} knew it belonged to such party, and as Hababier had not brought it to the place as his own, either upon his coming to or while staying at the inn, the proprietor had no lien upon it. [374] But of course, if a servant, or an agent, in the course of his employment, come to an inn and runs up a bill, the proprietor has a lien upon his master’s goods in the servant’s custody. ”

“ For that night’s lodging for twelve persons, with a frugal supper in which oysters, fowls, boiled mutton, poached eggs, and fried whiting figure, the landlord of the “Red Lion” presented an account of over £44. This truly grand bill has been preserved, not, let us hope, for the emulation of other hotel-keepers, but by way of a “terrible example.” Here it is:—
The Duke paid his account without a murmur, only remarking that innkeepers at this rate should soon grow rich ”

“ He lost two of the pieces, and it was held that the liability of the hotel-keeper continued until such delivery was actually made. [140] On the same principle that when an innkeeper sends his porter to the cars to receive the baggage of intending guests, he is responsible until it is actually re-delivered into the custody of the guests. And where a man paid his bill for the whole day and went off, leaving his trunk, with twenty cents for porterage, to be sent to the boat, the innkeeper was held liable until the baggage was actually put on board. ”

“ One visiting a boarder at an inn is a guest, and the keeper is liable for the loss of his goods, though not of the boarder’s.” [136]
“And when does a person cease to have the rights of a guest?” again queried the questioner.
I replied, “An innkeeper’s liability, as such, ceases when the guest pays his bill and quits the house with the declared intention of not returning,{62} and if he then leaves any of his possessions behind him, the landlord is no longer liable for their safe keeping, unless he has taken special charge of them, and then only as any other common bailee would be. ”

“ No innkeeper can detain the other goods and chattels of a guest for payment of the expenses of a horse, nor a horse for the expenses of the guest. You can only keep my horse for the price of its own meat, and that has been paid for. [329] If a man brought several horses to your old inn, each one could be detained only for its own keep, and not for that of the others; and if you let the{128} owner take away all but one, you could not keep that one until your whole bill was paid, but you would have to give it up on tender of the amount due for its keep. ”

“ A group of restaurants in New York City realizing the unfairness of the tipping system, has attempted a standardization of tips. The patron pays a 10% service charge with his bill, which per cent goes to the waiter at the end of the week. This seems entirely satisfactory to the worker in that it makes for a certainty of tips, but the pernicious principle underlying the tipping system persists.
Living-in The other uncertain element in a woman hotel worker’s earnings is the board and lodging offered as a part of her wage. ”

“ The Chief Baron said that if an innkeeper had a right to detain a guest for the non-payment of his bill, he had a right to detain him until the bill was paid, which might be for years or might be for aye; so that by the common law, a man who owed a small debt, for which he could not be imprisoned by legal process, might yet be detained by an innkeeper for life. Such a proposition my Lord Chief Baron said was monstrous, and, according to my lord Baron Parke, was startling. ”

“ If, however, the unsophisticated landlord is beguiled into letting them go by a fraudulent representation, his right remains; [377] and if they are taken away, he may follow them if he does not loiter. [378] Delays are always dangerous, except in cases of matrimony. Of course, a tender of the money claimed extinguishes the lien; [379] but it must be a valid tender. Tossing down a lot of money on a table, and offering it if the innkeeper will take it in full of the bill, is not a proper tender. ”

“ These reserved lots we valued at fifty dollars each.
Our modern Rome, like all mushroom towns along the line of a new railroad, sprang up as if by magic, and in less than one month we had two hundred frame and log houses, three or four stores, several saloons, and one good hotel. Rome was looming up, and Rose and I already considered ourselves millionaires, and thought we "had the world by the tail." But one day a fine-looking gentleman, calling himself Dr. W.E. Webb, appeared in town, and dropping into our store introduced himself in a very pleasant way. ”

“ Buntline immediately obtained a supply of pens, ink and paper, and then engaged all the hotel clerks as penmen. In less than an hour after he had rented the theater, he was dashing off page after page of his proposed drama—the work being done in his room at the hotel. He then set his clerks at copying for him, and at the end of four hours, he jumped up from the table, and enthusiastically shouted:
"Hurrah for 'The Scouts of the Plains!' That's the name of the play. The work is done. Hurrah!" ”

“ Nothing could well be more paltry, dishonest and irritating than such a system, for even the seaside lodging-house keepers’ extras are not nearly so annoying. Fortunately the better class of hotels have abolished the system altogether. You know what you have to pay, and even if you feel that the old extras are added in, that is not half so irritating as the old system.
One of the strangest things that I have noted in my hotel experience is the inferiority of the Temperance Hotel. ”

“ There is no implied contract that one to whom a particular room has been given shall retain it so long as he chooses to pay for it. [75] You pay your money, but you don’t take your choice.”
“But I liked the room so much,” said Mr. Complaining Grumbler.
“It matters not. The proprietor is not bound to comply with your caprices. [76] When you go to an hotel you have only a mere easement of sleeping in one room, and eating and drinking in another, as Judge Maule once remarked.” ”

“ These bills of fare will be sown broadcast over the country in letters to friends and kept as souvenirs. If, instead of all this senseless superfluity, I were allowed to give a table d’hôte meal to-morrow, with the chef I have, I could provide an exquisite dinner, perfect in every detail, served at little tables as deftly and silently as in a private house. I could also discharge half of my waiters, and charge two dollars a day instead of five dollars, and the hotel would become (what it has never been yet) a paying investment, so great would he the saving. ”

“ In order to judge of the value of board and lodging which is offered by the hotel, it is necessary to have some standards by which to measure it. Hotels have made no attempt to put a money value on lodging and board. The only way an estimate can be made of the cost to hotels is by the difference in wages paid to employees living in and those living out in the same establishment. Even this means is scarcely accurate because, in some cases, the same wage is paid to both and a varying number of meals is eaten by the employees. ”

“ I hastened to reply, “if you will so accept it.”
“Then I would ask,” continued my interrogator, “must a man be a certain length of time at an hotel before he is entitled to the privileges of a guest?”
“Oh, dear, no! Merely purchasing temporary refreshment at an inn makes the purchaser a guest and renders the innkeeper liable for the safety of the goods he may have with him, [121] if he is a traveler.”
“But who is a traveler?”
“One who is absent from his home, whether on pleasure or business. [122] A townsman or neighbor, who is actually traveling, may be a guest. ”

“ One of my Lords said that he agreed in the opinion that there is no obligation on a guest at an inn to lock his bedroom door; but the fact of the guest having the means of securing himself and choosing not to use them is one which, with the other circumstances of the case, should be left to the jury. The weight of it must, of course, depend upon the state of society at the time and place; what would be prudent at a small hotel in a small town might be the extreme of imprudence at a large hotel in a city like Bristol, where probably three hundred bedrooms were occupied by people of all sorts. ”

“ In New York, the law is very similar, [188] being to the effect that the hotel-keeper shall not be liable for loss of money, jewels, ornaments, or valuables, when he shall have provided a safe for the custody of such property, and shall have posted a notice to that effect in the room occupied by the guest, and the guest shall have neglected to deposit such property in the safe. ”

“ To understand the spirit of management which could issue such instructions to its employees in the face of the opportunity to exploit the public, as most hotels do and so throw the whole cost of wages upon the patron, it is necessary to consider other sections of the Code treating of professional hospitality.
"Hotel Statler is operated primarily for the benefit and convenience of its guests. Without guests there could be no Hotel Statler. These are simple Facts easily understood. ”

“ The regulation of the fees necessary for a hotel is more difficult than for a restaurant. The amount given should be proportioned to the time you have been in the house, the services of the waiters, the demands you have made upon them, and the size of your party. It is best to let one person of a party pay all the gratuities, and do it in a systematic way so that each servant receives his or her due. ”