When inspecting rooms, the housekeeper will notice that the room is completed with the following necessaries: One bed, one foot blanket. One rocking chair and two straight chairs. One writing table and a scrap basket. One cuspidor. One dresser. One clothes tree or wardrobe. One ice water pitcher and two glasses on a tray. If there is no bathroom, or stationary hot and cold water, there must be a commode, a wash bowl and pitcher, soap dish and clean soap. One slop jar, one chamber. Four face towels. If there is a bathroom, one bath mat and toilet paper in the holder. One small mirror. One cake of bath soap and two bath towels are needed. On the dresser in every guest room should be a box of safety matches and a candle. Candles are so cheap, and candle holders may be purchased for a trifle, which will answer the purpose as well as silver. No one who has lived in hotels but knows how annoying it is to be left in total darkness for half an hour, on account of a burned out fuse, when they are dressing for the theatre and in a hurry to complete their toilet.

The clerk in the office with the room rack in front of him has no conception of the rooms except that they are in perfect order. Perfect order does not only mean that the bed is neatly made, the floor clean and all the furniture dusted; soap, towels, matches, candles and glasses in their places, but everything must be in perfect working order. Let the housekeeper's inspection begin then with the door. The lock must be in order, and the key work properly. It is embarrassing to the clerk to have to listen of a morning to such complaints as "my door would not lock, and I was compelled to push the dresser in front of it to insure safety." But this "kick" is often heard in first-class houses. The transoms next should receive attention—see if they will open and close. Next the electric lights; they must all be in order and burn brightly. The dresser drawers must move readily, and be perfectly clean. The windows must be carefully examined to see if they open and close easily, and they must have no broken cords. A housekeeper's intelligent attentions to these details will greatly aid the clerk in prompt service to the guests, and will insure to the hotel the service that will be its own best advertisement.