THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER

The genuine traveller is really the man who is on business. Even the tourist can scarcely lay confident claim to the title. Is he not on pleasure bent? Is he not going from place to place merely for the fun of the thing? Is he not really a stay-at-home who has ventured out merely to stretch his legs? Ask the keeper of a commercial hotel in a country town who his customers are. He will tell you that they are commercial travellers and coffee-room visitors. The two classes are distinct in the mind of mine host. One suggests work, the other play. The commercial man is bound to travel whether he likes it or not, the visitor is a fitful amateur amusing himself by a change from the monotony of home.

Whoso looks upon the commercial traveller as a modern production created by the railway system should listen to the explosion of wrath from an old hand on the road, who has had time and inclination to examine into the history of commerce. “What, no traditions!” he will exclaim. “Permit me to call your attention once more, my friend, to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who was he, I should like to know, but a commercial traveller? Everything points to it. He was travelling in oil and wine, why else should he have had them with him? Notice his influence with the host of the inn. He was evidently known there. He could give instructions and had enough ready money to leave two denarii on his departure, with a reminder that he would be coming again later on. Then, again, his broad-minded sympathy, he was certainly no sectarian. Commercial travellers rarely are. Their calling teaches them to be friendly to all sorts and conditions of men. No traditions? History is full of incidents which show that the man who travels with samples is as old as the hills.”

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century it was the bagman who used the inn. Not a term of opprobrium this by any means. Think of the immediate forerunner of the present-day commercial, sitting astride a sturdy horse with a well-stocked bag on each side, facing all weathers, negotiating all roads, and making a journey of a month or two at a time. Not an altogether despicable figure this. There would be nothing squeamish about his methods, perhaps; but he would be equally welcome to his customers and mine host as a carrier of news or a purveyor of goods. He travelled horseback because the roads he had to go over were not always suitable for vehicles. It was not till Macadam that the light spring-cart became an essential part of his equipment.

Long after the commencement of railways the commercial traveller was known as a bagman. The Daily Telegraph, in the year 1865, seemed in doubt as to whether its readers would recognize the more modern name without some explanation, for it refers to “a traveler—I mean a bagman, not a tourist—arriving with his samples at a provincial town.” At that time, of course, commercial travellers were increasing in numbers; but inasmuch as railways only connected up towns on certain routes, the light cart was used constantly to go the round of outlying districts. Indeed, to-day, there are commercial travellers who still use the older method of progress for work in parts of counties where railway communication is poor and the service of trains intermittent. The motor-car is also an occasional means of conveyance for travellers. When first it was so used, tradesmen looked askance at it as being likely to frighten the horses of carriage customers.

The country inn began to cater specially for business men early in the nineteenth century, and the establishment of the commercial room was the ultimate result of the special accommodation which innkeepers offered to travellers.

The “Fox and Pelican” Inn, Haslemere

Let no unwary casual visitor, even to-day, imagine that all rooms except the bedchambers of an inn in a country town are open to him. The commercial room is a private apartment reserved for privileged representatives of business concerns. A ritual has grown up which is strictly observed by those whose right it is to make use of its many conveniences. Notice the formality of greeting which a late comer extends to the president of the table at the one o’clock dinner. “Mr. President, may I be permitted to join you?” or “Mr. President, may I have the honour of joining this company?” “With pleasure, sir.” The head of the table invites the company to join him at wine. “Well, gentlemen, what do you say to a bottle of sherry to begin with?” And later on—“Now gentlemen, suppose we have a bottle of port.” Here is indicated a spaciousness of life, a dignity and ease which the rapid pushful customs of to-day are hustling into the past. But although the long wine dinners in the commercial room, where every traveller was considered good for at least a pint, are almost over, the ceremonial is still to a great extent kept up. At one time not so long ago, a diner paid for his share of the wine consumed whether he drank it or not; but the spread of teetotalism, the establishment of Temperance Hotels and the gradual curtailment of the time spent on dinner, as well as the keen competition which compelled every man on the road to make as much of the afternoon as he did of the morning, led to a freer personal liberty in the consumption of and payment for liquor. Nowadays, a commercial traveller orders and pays for what he likes. There is a generally understood rule that the traveller longest in the hotel shall officiate as president, and should an entirely fresh set of arrivals enter the commercial room at dinner-time, the first to come in takes the head of the table as president, or chairman, as he is more commonly called to-day. The custom of toasting the Sovereign at dinner, at one time common, has now fallen into disuse. In places where the Sunday commercial dinner is still an institution—return tickets on the railways at a single fare, and express trains have largely done away with it—the old time formalities are still kept up, for Sunday is a day which admits of plenty of leisure and opportunity for ceremonial. Grace used to be pronounced by the president, and a story goes that on one occasion—perchance on many subsequent occasions—at a suggestion from one of the diners that Mr. President should “now say grace,” the head of the table arose and inquired, “Is there a clergyman present? No? Thank God,” and resumed his seat.

One good custom which still survives and is likely to do so, is the penny collection in the Commercial Room for the Commercial Travellers’ Schools and the Commercial Travellers’ Benevolent Association. This collection is taken daily at every dinner in the commercial room all over the country, and it is largely from the proceeds that these institutions are supported. A sidelight on custom may be observed in the fact that in many hotels now the collection is taken at breakfast to ensure every traveller being present. The midday dinner became less well attended, and this led to a serious diminution in the receipts when once travellers began to use restaurants and take advantage of local travelling facilities to visit customers at some distance from headquarters. It is common for the landlord of the inn to take charge of the money collected. The president of the table enters the amount, divided into equal portions into two books and fixes his initials, the proprietor of the establishment, on the annual remittance to the Association, receiving a votes allotment which can be utilized on behalf of any applicants for the privileges of the two philanthropic bodies.

No one is permitted to smoke in the commercial room until after 9 p.m., a rule which is observed far more strictly than those unacquainted by actual experience with the traveller’s life might think. The custom of using slippers of the inn, which indispensable “Boots” keeps often at his own expense, is peculiar to the commercial room, though many travellers now carry their own foot wear for the fireside with them. At the Red Horse,[17] Stratford-on-Avon, “Boots” is credited with having as fine a selection of comfortable slippers as is to be found in the kingdom.

Convenience for those who use the room led to the provision of a big table in the centre, with small writing-tables round the walls. In old inns this simple method of furnishing is still retained; but more pretentious establishments now have a separate writing-room. Upon the landlord rests the responsibility of providing many small details in equipment, such as books of reference, time-tables, ink-stands, paper and pens. At the Old Steyne Hotel, Brighton, the landlord—himself an old Commercial—even goes to the length of providing an open box of penny and halfpenny stamps which travellers may take from as they will, paying for what they use by placing the money in another box which stands close by. Probably in no other room of an inn could such a convenience be extended without abuse. At the same hotel a special stand of well-selected canes is always kept for travellers who may wish to use them in their walks of relaxation on the front.

Beyond these small matters of detail of equipment the commercial room has little of interest. Hear the description of the author of “The Ambassadors of Commerce,” who prefaces what he has to say with the remark that “the cosiness and comfort of the commercial room in the old-fashioned hotel are by no means due to its architectural form, its size, ventilation, or adaptation to its special purposes—most of them having none of these requisites—but to its association,” etc.... “The room itself is not hung with choice works of art in either oil or water colours.” We seem, by the way, to have seen many a terrible old oleograph. “The proprietor being more desirous of advertising noted whiskys and popular bitter ales, he covers his walls with framed advertisements of these beverages. These, with a coloured print of the Commercial Travellers’ Schools at Pinner, and a notice of the dinner hour, complete the picture. Add to the same a dozen or more half-dried overcoats, mackintoshes, whips, rugs, hats of all conceivable shapes, and you have some idea of the ornamentations and fine art decoration of an old-fashioned commercial room.” Not an altogether unattractive picture either. It smacks of the old mid-Victorian times when mahogany and horsehair were the chief stock in trade of the furnisher. A day may come when this much abused combination of woodwork and upholstery will be sought after. Stranger things have happened. Mahogany and horsehair chairs and sofas are rapidly approaching that age limit beyond which they will certainly become interesting, and one can see in imagination the advertisements of the second-hand dealers who will describe them as “genuinely old.” In that day many an old commercial room will be made to yield up its treasures to the insatiable greed of collectors. It is not uncommon, however, to find odd pieces of eighteenth-century furniture in the travellers’ room to-day. We have come across several old sideboards which were obviously of not later date than Sheraton’s time, though in all probability the famous cabinet-maker had but little to do with their origin.

It is the experience of most commercial travellers that the temperance hotel, quite apart from the fact that it supplies no alcoholic liquors, is only very rarely comparable to the fully-licensed house. Tradition may have something to do with the comfort of the old inn, and temperance hotels have no traditions whatever. Their inception was due to a protest, and even to-day, with the temperance movement so well understood and appreciated, the “hotels” which advertise themselves as being dogmatically averse to a particular form of refreshment, more often than not seem unable adequately to provide comforts about which there can be no question whatever. We have known many temperance hotels which began with a flourish of trumpets and a long list of influential patrons; a few years later they had become slovenly, disreputable, and even in one or two cases, immoral. An inn may have peculiarities, it may have character through history and old associations, but one thing it should certainly never possess, and that is a narrow shibboleth.