CALIFORNIAN HOTELS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 92, 5 April 1876, Page 4

CALIFORNIAN HOTELS.

A recent traveller by the American route addsT the following to the information on the 'Subjißct of San Francisco hotels' :— The, hotels are. a great institution* The Occidental, at which we put up, has C.420 rooinß, thirteen billiard tables, post-office, telegraph -office, (rendered doubly attractive; by the presence of a female operator), barber's saloon, tobacconists shop, and other 'appurtenances, making> a upi; a - small township in itself. Therja^ are. five flats in the house, and when oae wants to go up one's room,, pne steps into an elaborately uphol-

stjered elevator — " Where for sir ?"' "J320;" and up one goes like a streak of greased lightning through a gooae- , berry bush - it's awfully tolly ! Numbers of private families live in these hotels, not always from {choice, however, but in tnany;. cases as" a matter of economy, the high prices jf 6f» commodities, house rents,' and Ber.yants rendering ..housekeeping a serious uodertnking... The effect, of thisi is of course utterly to destroy' all that] sentiment which goes to make up jihe unity and ; sqcial attractions of an English home. •It necessarily induces indolence in wiomen folk, and we all" know that when they have nothing to do they get in to mischief, and study .deeply the 8( ience of dressing and undressing,, their success in the former being on exhibition each afternoon in Kearneystreet. In our hotel we could get meals at any hour, from six in the morning, till twelve at night; and it was as well .we could, for if a man desired io hftve L his breakfast finished by nine o'clock he would require, to commence lat six. 1 1 can back; the San Fraijfcisco; waiter against ~ the world for unapproachable; laziness;- In America ;;theu',biggest of everything is general ly^considered the besf,-and San Francisco is trying to make itself the best city in America; it has, of course, the^ biggest hotel in the world. This, structure is; oalled the Palace Hotel, and a few particulars about it may not be uninteresting. It is! built on a whole block, surrounding a quadrangular court, into wh'ch open balconies twelve feet wide, and has a 'frontage to four streets — 350 to MoDt- • gomery-atreet and 255 to Marketstreet; it covers 96,250 square feet of ,land; it has tiers of storeys reaching to the height of 115 feet;; contains about 1,200 rooms; there, are 348 bay windows', and 377 bathrooms in the house; every room is ventilated with a separate flue- running to the roiojf; it has four' artesian, wells, over fourlmiles of hose, ; and the building can be [drenched: from roof to cellar in ten? minutes; there are five elevators, each' of which can raise 100 passengers from the ground floor' to the seventh storey in one minute. The building itself is estimated to cost £60,000. It has not a very pretentious appearance, but go where one will in San Francisco the. Palace Hotel is always in sight. L • :■'.