GOLDEN HOTELS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 4 February 1909, Page 3

GOLDEN HOTELS.

Commodore Vanderbilt used to say that all he got for his wealth was board and clothes, and Mr Carnegie says that “ all the millionaire can get out of life is superior food, raiment, and shelter.” An American paper makes the happy retort of publishing photographs of two “ superior shelters.” One, a hall in one of Mr E. J. Berwiud’s homes, might be in the palace of an Emperor, so gorgeous is it. The other is a room in Mr Perry Belmont’s house at Newport, a room in which one could place an average cottage comfortably. Each chair probably represents an average man’s annual earnings, and the chandelier looks as if it had cost as much as a trip Home, We pointed out the other day that the reports of the Horse Show at New York justified part of Mr Upton Sinclair’s extraordinary attack on New York society in The “Metropolis.” If the Daily Mail’s New York correspondent is to be believed, this writer’s fertile imagination has invented nothing approaching the extravagance of the newest and greatest of Fifth avenue hotels for millionaires. 'The management of this establishment has engaged a staff of twenty-five goldsmiths and silversmiths for the sole purpose of manufacturing golden dinner-services and silver candelabra and door-knobs. One of the first products of this special workshop will be a dinner service of gold for a seven-course meal for seven persons. Dishes worth £7O a piece will rest on larger dishes worth Even now the silver used in the hotel is estimated to be worth ,£50,000, and a staff of special repairers and pleauers are constantly engaged on it. The bronze fittings will probably be replaced by silver, the manager says. The magnificent hotels of New York have been described as intended to “provide exclusiveness from the masses,” and there are (says the correspondent) probably 200, ooq rich Americans fn the metropolis enjoying tfiis exclusiveness on a scale of unexpected extravagance, It is suggested that the demands of millionaires will soon rise (or sink) to golden baths, turquoise hand-basins, and finger-bowls made from split emeralds.