HE DISCOVERS A MAN WITH AN IDEA—A NEW PLAN OF RUNNING A GOOD HOTEL—IMPROVEMENTS FOR WHICH PEOPLE PAY IN ADVANCE. The following circular from a hotel-man in Kansas is going about over the country, and it certainly deserves more than a passing notice. I change the name of the hotel and proprietor in order to avoid giving any free boom to a man who seems to be thoroughly self-reliant and able to take care of him
Here we have a man with a quiet, gentlemanly way, and yet withal a cool, level head, a man who knows when he needs more room and how best to go to work to remedy that defect. Mr. Towel sees that another row of sleeping rooms, cut low in the ceiling, is actually needed. In fancy he already sees these rooms added to his house. Each has a strip of hemp carpet in front of the bed and a cute little green shade over the window, a shade that falls down when we try to adjust it, filling the room with Kansas dust. In his dreams he sees Mr. Towel has made a rapid calculation on the buttered side of a menu, and ascertained that if one-half the traveling men in the United States would kindly advance $5, to be refunded in case they did not decide to make a tour to the Roller Towel House, and to be taken out of the bill in case they did, the amount so received would not only add a row of compressed hot-air bedrooms, with flexible soap and a delirious-looking glass, but also insure an electric button, which may or may not connect with the office, and over which said button the following epitaph could be erected: One Ring for Bell Boy. In fact, a man could have rings on his fingers and bell-boys on his toes all the time if he wanted to do so. And yet there will be traveling-men who will receive this kind circular and still hang back. Constant contact with a cold, cruel world has made them cynical, and they will hesitate even after Mr. Towel has said that he will improve his house with the money, and even after he has assured us that we need not visit Kansas at all if we will advance the money. This shows that he is not altogether a heartless man. Mr. Towel may be poor, but he is not without consideration for the feelings of people who loan him money. For my own part I fully believe that Mr. Towel would be willing to fit up his house and put matches in each room if traveling-men throughout the country would respond to this call for assistance. But the trouble is that the traveling public expect a landlord to take all the risks and advance all the money. This makes the matter of hotel keeping a hazardous one. Mr. Towel asks the guests to become an interested party. Not that he in so many words agrees to divide the profits proportionately at the end of the year with the stockholders, but he is willing to make his hotel larger, and if food does not come up as fast as it goes down—in price, I mean—he will try to make all his guests feel perfectly comfortable while in his house. Under favorable circumstances the Roller-Towel House would no doubt be thoroughly refitted and On receipt of $5 from each one of the traveling men of the union new hinges would be put into the slippery-elm towels; the pink soap would be revarnished; the different kinds of meat on the table will have tags on them, stating in plain words what kinds of meat they are so that guests will not be forced to take the word of servant or to rely on their own judgement; fresh vinegar with a sour taste to it, and without microbes, will be put in the cruets; the old and useless cockroaches will be discharged; and the latest and most approved adjuncts of hotel life will be adopted. Why, then, should the traveling man hesitate? Why should he doubt and draw back, falter and shrink? Why should he allow pessimism and other foreign substances to get into his system and change his whole life? Let him remit $5 to the Roller Towel House, and if this should prove a success he may assist other hotels in the same manner. He would thus feel an interest in their growth and prosperity. Then, as he became more and more forehanded, he could assist the railroads, the 'bus lines, and the boot-blacks, barbers, laundries, &c., in the same manner. I would like to call upon the American people in the same way. I would like very much to establish a nice, expensive home for inebriates. It would cost, properly fitted up, about $750,000 or $800,000. If those who read this article will lend $50, by express or draft, I will take it out of their bill the first time they will stop at my new and attractive inebriate asylum. Who will be the first to contribute?—Boston Globe. |