Hotel owner

“ They make their plans on a large scale, and they who come after them fill up what has been wanting at first. Those taps of hot and cold water will be made to run by the next owner of the hotel, if not by the present owner. ”

“ The proprietor of an hotel shall, as an innkeeper, be under the like liability, if any, to make good to any guest of his any damage to property brought to the hotel as he would be under to make good the loss thereof. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Let it be understood once for all that I dislike hotels as necessary evils, but that my sense of justice compels me to admit that one may be made comfortable in a gigantic caravanserai where it would seem impossible for the personal element to have any chance to express itself, and, conversely, that one may be made abjectly miserable in a very small hotel where it might naturally be thought that the proprietor would make it his sole business to see that his guests were comfortable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It only means that the hotels are improving. The truth is that as the typical old-fashioned hotel was built and conducted in America, with the main entrance opening directly from the street into the large paved lobby, where men congregated at all hours of the day to talk politics and to spit, where the porters banged and trundled luggage, and whither, through the door opening to one side, came the clamour of the bar-room, it was out of the question that women should frequent that common entrance. ”

“ It is we who set the pace in luxury and style. The hotels merely live up to our standards. The manager of a shabby hotel can not see me walk into his lobby without feeling instantly ashamed of the poor accommodations he has to offer me. The hotel managers were so irked at being put out of countenance by the obvious superiority of the casual hotel visitor that they set out to provide for him a proper setting. ”

“ No impositions are allowed by guides, post-drivers, &c., and the hotel-keepers strive in every way to make their houses as attractive as possible in every respect to the guest, who enjoys the real luxury of an elegant hotel, in an attractive or celebrated resort, at a reasonable price, and does not suffer to that extent the same irritation that he experiences in England or America at such places—of knowing he is being deliberately swindled in every possible manner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Keeping a hotel is a gift, as much as poetry, or sculpture, or painting. I might name men whose hotels have attained perfection under their wise, cleanly, and systematic ordering; but perfect as they are, I, for one, am not employed to advertise them over the length and breadth of the land in the New York Ledger. ”

“ Certainly there is no country in which the guest upon reaching his hotel is treated with such laughable condescension as in this. A wretched hole of a room, shabbily furnished, the dirty walls and a suspicious bed, with a quart of water and a pocket-handkerchief of a towel, for which he is to pay four or five dollars or more daily, is awarded to the humbly expectant visitor as a high favor. A great American hotel is a penitentiary for travellers, and the gentlemen at the office are the lofty turnkeys and lord high-constables. A self-respecting man will travel here as little as possible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The hotel was a small one. Dinner would be served for the hotel guests a trifle earlier, so that they might the sooner leave the way clear for me. This had been proposed by Madame Blet herself, the proprietress, and was intended no doubt for a fine piece of hospitality. For me the strict hotel rules were to be slackened; the fine democracy of hotel life, where one guest is as good as another, if he but pay his account, was to be overruled in my favor; for me the sun was to be advanced, and the moon set at a new pace in the heavens! ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the matter of property we may find an obvious but useful parable in the difference between living in a house and living in an hotel. There are some practical conveniences in the hotel; but there is first of all a sort of megalomaniac glamour of great spaces and gilded ceilings that is not practical at all. At best there is the romance of personal adventure and accident; but there is no corporate and communal life. ”

“ The hotel accommodation cannot be commended. The food one gets is simply execrable; but doubtless all this will soon be changed. I am told that a wealthy company has now obtained leases for hotels, and the public may hope next year to be better fed and better lodged than they have been in the past. The hotel charges at present are four dollars a day. ”

“ The hotel was just completed, and the ladders, and the handsome lime barrels, and hods, and old nail kegs, and fragments of laths, and pieces of bricks, and scaffolds, and all those things that go to make life desirable, are still there adorning the hotel and the front yard; but there is no handsome man with a waxed mustache inside at the desk, shaking his head sadly when he is asked for a room, and looking at you with that high-born pity and contempt for your pleading, that the hotel clerk—heir apparent to the universe—always keeps for those who go to him with humility. ”

“ I replied, “and it extends to all personal property the guest brings with him, whatever may be the value or the kind. [91] And if the proprietor happens to be absent he is still liable for the conduct of those he has left in charge. [92] Innkeepers, as well as common carriers, are regarded as insurers of the property committed to their care. The law rests on the same principles of policy here as in England and other countries, and is wise and reasonable.” ”

“ She can save money, for she will have better pay in the linen-room. She will also have better food, and will learn something of the executive management of the hotel. Naturally, she will see more of the proprietor or the manager, and will learn his ideas and principles, which knowledge may be useful to her in later years. Time brings about many changes, and hotels change proprietors, as well as housekeepers and managers. Often, when a new manager makes his appearance, he will bring his housekeeper or linen-room woman with him ”

“ The advertisement stated that 'the keys of the hotel, when complete, will be delivered to the fortunate possessor of the ticket drawn against its number,' and that '$100 will be given for the best plan of an elegant and convenient hotel or inn, with hot and cold baths, stable,' etc. ”

“ In a{60} New York case, where a resident of the town left his horses at the inn stables, it was decided that the proprietor was not liable for them. [124] So if a ball is given at an hotel the guests present cannot hold the proprietor liable for any losses occurring while they are tripping the light fantastic toe, as he did not receive them in his public capacity.” [125]
“But,” remarked a person standing by, “but how would it be if a traveler left his baggage at an hotel and stopped elsewhere?”
“If one leaves any dead thing, as baggage, at an inn he will not be considered a guest ”

“ The chief distinction between a boarding-house and an inn, and the one from which all others naturally flow, is that the keeper of a boarding-house can choose his own guests, admitting some and rejecting others, as to him in his discretion or according to his whims and humors may seem best; while an innkeeper is obliged to entertain all travelers of good conduct, and possessed of means of payment, who choose to stop at his house, and those who do stay he must provide with all they have occasion for while on their way. ”

“ Of these old-fashioned hotels,—barbarous relics of another day,—few are to be found now, and, though existing in reality, are being fast robbed of their clientièle, which demand something more in the way of conveniences—with no diminution of comforts—than it were possible to get in the two or three private houses thrown into one, and dubbed by the smugly respectable title of "Private Hotel." ”

“ It is for the most part a large private house, without, though not always without, the parade of concierge and other distinctive marks of an hotel. As a rule, to which there are exceptions, it is more homely, there is less style in the method of conducting, less appearance about the rooms, and smaller attention paid to service and sanitary arrangements. On the other hand, the company is smaller, and as the people come to remain for periods of time, they fraternize better, and there is a good deal more of the home feeling in a pension than ever finds its way into any hotel. ”

“ The distinction, however, was made because, as the horse must be fed, the innkeeper has a profit out of it, whereas he gets nothing out of a dead thing. [129] One need not, however, take all his meals or lodge every night at the inn where his baggage is. It is sufficient if he takes a room and lodges or boards at the house part of the time.” [130] {61}
“I think I have heard that if one makes an agreement for boarding by the week, he ceases to have the rights of a guest,” said the previous speaker. ”

“ Those who are educated understand that by the "inside" of a hotel is meant everything except the four outer walls of it—the fittings, the furniture, the bar, Billy the desk-clerk, the three dining-room girls, and above all the license granted by King Edward VII., and ratified further by King George, for the sale of intoxicating liquors. ”

“ He should know that the best results are obtained from his help by kindness, and that good food and good beds mean better service.
The manager should realize that the working force of a hotel is like the mechanism of a clock: it has to be wound occasionally and set going. No novice can operate this wonderful piece of mechanism; it requires a skilled mechanic.
The proprietor of a hotel should be a good loser; for there are periods of the year when the employes outnumber the guests, and the balance-sheet shows a heavy loss. ”

“ At the table we were joined by an acquaintance, who informed me that he had great difficulty in obtaining admission to the house, as the innkeeper had a grudge against him.
“No matter what personal objection a host may have, he cannot refuse to receive a guest. Every one who opens an inn by the wayside, and professes to exercise the business and employment of a common innkeeper, is bound to afford such shelter and accommodation as he possesses to all travelers who apply therefor, and tender, or are able to pay, the customary charges,” [7] I remarked. ”

“ A lodging-house keeper makes a special contract with every man that comes to him, whereas an innkeeper is bound, without any particular agreement, to provide lodging and entertainment for all who come to him, at a reasonable price. ”