please, paying extra for anything you drink beyond tea or water; and also for the washing of your apparel, baths, fires, and meals in your bed-room, &c. This is, per annum, about £146 of our money, which will sound a heavy item to English ears; but it must be borne in mind that the living is of the most varied and recherché quality, and dealt out with an unsparing hand. The tables are covered from six in the morning until twelve at night, being continually supplied with clean cloths, finger-napkins, plate, glass, &c. You have, moreover, the use of large receptionrooms, and the still more important one of a reading-room, where the principal papers of the town you reside in, and of the Union, are filed. Your own apartment is plentifully supplied with linen, water, soap, lamp and candles, and the attendance is prompt and profuse. Of course, we must be understood to speak of the leading hotels in the leading cities; in many others, service is below par, and civility at an alarming discount. Having lived for some time at one of, if not the, best in the whole Republic, "The Revere House," Boston, we cannot do better than furnish the reader and the rover with the "statistics" of this wondrous dwelling-house-par excellence, the model hotel of the countrywhereby he may form a tolerable notion of similar habitations. Let us begin by submitting a general bill of fare, placed by the side of every one at the dinner-table-a fac-simile of the one whose contents we made an attack upon, the first time we sat there. The variation of dishes from day to day depends upon the fancy of the chef de cuisine, and the provision which happens to be in season; the cooking is in the best style of that potential art, and the wines as fine as wines can be, if rated only by their several prices!

Breakfast, half-past Seven to Ten; Dinner, Ladies' Ordinary, half-past Two; Gentlemen's Ordinary, half-past Two; Tea, from Six to Nine; Supper from Nine to Twelve.

SUNDAY-Breakfast at Eight; Dinner at half-past One; Tea at halfpast Five; Supper, Nine to Ten.

Gentlemen having friends to dine, will please give notice at the office. Meals sent to rooms will be charged extra. Early Dinners served in Ladies' Ordinary from One to Two only. Persons wishing early Dinner will please notify the office.

Children occupying seats at the table will be charged full price. Dinner for children and nurses from One to half-past One.

The entire management of Revere House, and all such houses, is conducted by clerks, under the direction of the proprietor, who occupy an office, conspicuously situated, from which every instruction throughout the establishment is issued, and whose orders are carried out by a whole army of servants. There is an appendage to this office of a remarkable character called an "Annunciator," invented, we believe, by Jackson, of New York city, whereby all the bell-pulls of the house are brought within one focus. It is entirely under the control of the clerks, who, when the label that covers the number of any room falls and displays that number, announce it to any waiters in attendance, who fly off to answer the bell.

Thus, the bell of any room having been rung, the label over

it falls down and discovers the number, and as soon as the room is answered, the clerk has a private "pull," which instantly recovers that number. It is a vast improvement upon the oldfashioned mode of having all the bells hung in the hall, with a number attached to each-the noise attendant upon which in a large hotel being literally insufferable.

If any one should open his eyes on perusing this recited "bill of fare," in the same degree he would open his mouth in partaking of a due portion of its contents, to what extent will he not open them when he examines this compendium of the average weekly consumption, whereby such a series of breakfasts, dinners, teas, and suppers, are served up, through a daily routine of nearly eighteen hours?

Here is "food for the convent" with a vengeance; and having shown the quantity demolished, let us see who are the demolishers.

GUESTS.* There are about 450 daily boarders in the summer, and 215 in the winter months.

* One of the most distinguishing features of these American dinners is the hasty manner in which, contrary to all refined notions, they are disposed of. A worthy fellow sits down, attacks in rapid succession everything he can lay his hands on, or find room for in his mouth; masticates, or else swallows without mastication, all he fancies; and by the time well-regulated appetites have only got as far as the soup, and while

CLERKS.-Four in the office, and two at the bar.
HOUSEKEEPER. —One.

STEWARD.-One.

WAITERS.-Sixty. In this house they are white menchiefly Irish, with a slight interlarding of Scotch and Germans, very few English, and no Americans; the latter would rather want bread than serve to gain it, they having especial notions of freedom and equality! The darkies are the best waiters, but the biggest thieves; the Irish the worst, and the most insolent. There can be no sight more laughable than to see a whole troop of these niggers, under the command of a head one (who marshals them every morning, and whose "word of command" is a whistle), strutting about in a semi-military manner, and with dishes in one hand and knives and forks in the other, making as pompous a parade as if they were going through the manual and platoon exercise. The pay of these people is about fifteen dollars a month, and of one thing you may be sure-they live on the fat of the land.

CHAMBERMAIDS.-Twelve: all we were ever attended upon

by-Irish.

CONFECTIONER.-One, in whose department the almost incredible quantity of seven tons of preserves are annually made. COOKS.-Eight.

KITCHENMAIDS.-Nine.
SCULLIONS.-Five.

BAKERS. TWO. Every species of bread and pastry is baked in the house.

IRONINGMAIDS.-Ten.
WASHERWOMEN.-Eight.

The whole of the washing,* starching, ironing, mangling, &c., of the establishment, and its guests, is done in the house. CARPENTER.-One.

BOOTS. (Black as the liquid they use). Four.

KNIFECLEANERS.-Two.

what he has eaten is sticking in his throat, he darts out as if life and death depended upon some appointment he has to keep. This system of bolting a meal, without digesting it, is one of the causes of those incessant attacks of dyspepsia, to which the Americans are subject; spitting, on which we shall elsewhere dilate, is another.

With such rapidity is this done, that it frequently happens a gentleman orders a bath, and before the process of ablution is gone through, his dirty shirt is brought to him, washed, ironed, and completely "got up," the time occupied in such operation being less than twenty-five minutes!

LAMPMEN.-Three.
PORTERS.-Four.

ENGINEMEN.-Two.

With all these mouths to feed, a sufficient quantity of broken victuals is still left to produce, sold at a mere song, the weekly sum of seventy-five dollars. We obtained all this astounding information at the fountain-head, where the parties candidly admitted they could not really give any reliable account of the quantity of table-cloths, sheets, pillow-cases, towels, dinner-napkins, doyleys, blankets, &c. ; nor of china, crockery, plate, glass, hardware, &c., with the weight of which the shelves of the building literally groaned. In addition to the refectories, which are of vast dimensions, there are thirty-seven parlors, and nine drawing-rooms. There is the usual bar for "taking a drink,” and obtaining a cigar; and there is the all-important barber's shop, without which an American's comfort would be altogether incomplete. We do not pretend to fathom any other person's ideas of the marvellous, but for ourselves, we were perfectly flabbergasted when the foregoing statistics of this mighty caravansary were first submitted to our observation.

It is quite astonishing how so much order and regularity is maintained in such an immense establishment; and though the proprietors do now and then get "taken in and done for," yet instances of that kind are not of frequent occurrence.

Very few Americans, comparatively speaking, shave themselves (though in Wall Street, New York, they shave other people in good style); consequently to every hotel, and even to their larger steamboats, a hairdresser's shop is attached. In that of the St. Nicholas Hotel (recently opened in New York at an expense scarcely to be believed), it is no uncommon sight to see some twenty gentlemen at a time under the tonsor's hand, and others washing, brushing, and perfuming themselves, in all the glory of Eastern luxury. In these extraordinary emporiums, such is the run of business, that they could furnish ample occupation for the mother of the famous Nan Clarges (afterwards Duchess of Albemarle) and the four other women barbers, of whom the old ballad'says—

"Did you ever hear the like,

Or ever hear the same,

Of five women barbers,

That lived in Drury Lane?"

On asking an American why his countrymen generally wore so much hair, he replied, "Why, if we should happen to tell a lie, it's as well not to tell a barefaced one.

† Mr. Stetson, the well-known and esteemed proprietor of the Astor House, told us that a fellow came one day and took apartments at his hotel, where his style of living was profuse, his manner pleasant, and his air quite patronising. As, however, no symptoms of payment manifested