JOSH BILLINGS ON HOTELS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 762, 12 January 1871, Page 3

JOSH BILLINGS ON HOTELS.

Hotels are houses ov refuge, homes ■for the vagrants, the married man's retreat, and the bachelor's fireside. They are kept in all sorts of ways, some on the European plan,, aud meuny ov them on no plan at all. A good landlord iz like a good stepmother, he knows his bizness and means to do his duty. He knows how to rub hiz hands with joy when a traveller draws nigh, ho knows how to smile, he knows your - wife's father when he was liviug, aud your wife's first husband, but he don't speak about him. He kan toll whether it will rain tomorrow or not; he hears your eomplaintswith a tear in his eye, he blows up the servants at yure suggestion, -and stands around reddy with a shirt collar as stiff* as broken china.

A man may be a good Supremo Court Judge, and at the same time be -a miserable landlord.

Most evrybody thinks he kan keep a hotel (and they kan), but this accounts for the great number of hotels that are kept on the same principle that a Justic ov the Peace offiss is kept in a country during a six days' jury trial for killing sumboddy's yello • dorg.

A hotel wont keep itself ard keep the landlord too, and never kure a traveller from the habit of profane : swearing. I hav bad this experiment tried on .me several times, and it alwus makes me swear wuss. It iz too often the kase that landlords go into the buzziness of hash as •ministers go into the profeshuu, with the very best ov motives, but the poorest kind ov prospects. I don't know ov any bizziness more flattersum than the tavern bizziness; there don't seem to be annything to do but to stand in front ov the register with a pen behind the ear and see that the guests enter the house, then yank a bell-rope six or seven times, and then tell John to sbo the gentleman to 97(3, and then take four dollars and fifty cents next morning from the poor devil of a traveller and let him went.

This seems to be the whole thing (and it iz the whole thing) in mostcases.

Tu ■■ will discover the following deskripshun : a mild one, ov about 9 hotels out; of 10 between the Atlantick and Pacifick Oshuns akrostthe United States in a straight line : —■ Tour room is 13 foot 6 inches, by 9 foot 7 inches, parallelograinly, It being court week (es usual) all the good rooms are employed by the lawyers and Judges.

Toure room is on the uttermost floor.

The carpet is ingrain—ingrained with the dust, kerosene ile and ink spots of four generashuns. There iz two pegs in the room tow hitch coats on to • one ov them broke oph and the other pulled out and missing.

The buro has three legs and one brick.

The glass to the buro swings on two pivots which have lost their grip. Thareis one towel on the rack, thin, but wet. The rain water in the pitcher came out ov the well.

The soap iz as tuff to wear az a whetstone.

The soap is scented with cinnamon ile, and variegated with spots. There iz three chairs, cane seeters, one iz a rocker, and all three is busted. There is a match box, empty. Thare is no kurtin to the window, and there don't want to be any; you kant see out, and who kan see in. The bell-rope is cum oph about six inches this side ov the ceiling. The bed iz a modern slab bottom, with two mattresses, one cotton and one husk, and both' harder and about az' thick az a sea biskit.

Yu .enter the bed side ways, and kan feel every slat at once, az easy az you could the ribs of a gridiron.

The bed iz inhabited. You sleep some but roll over a good deal. For breakfast you have a gong, and rhy coffee tco cold to melt butter; fried potatoes which resemble the she chips that a two-inch augur makes in its journey through an oak log. Bread soiled, beefstake about as thick as a blister plaster, aud as tough as;a:hound's ear.

Table covered with plates, a few scared to death pickles'on one ov them, and :Bix fly-endorsed crackers on the other.

A pewterinktum castor with three bottles in it, one without any pepper in it; one without any mustard, and one .with two inches of drowned fles, and sum vinegar in it.

Servant girl, with hoops on, hangs jaround ye earnestly, and wants to Know if you want another cup ov coffee. .

Yu say, "No mom, I thank yu," and push back your chair. Yu havn't eat enuff to pay for picking yure teeth. I em about as self con seated az it will do for a man to be and not crack open, but I never yet Consaited that I , could keep a hotel; I had rather be a .highwayman than be sum landlords I have visited with.

There are hotels that are a joy upon the earth, whare a man pays his bill az cheerfully az he did the parson who .married him ; whare yu kant find the landlord unless yu hunt in the kitchen ; whare servants glide around like angels ov mercy ; whare the beds fit a mau's back like the feathers on a goose, and where the vittles taste thus

ns tho yure wife or jure mother lutd fried theiri. Theze kind ov hotels ought to be blt on wheels and travel around the country; they are just az full of real CJinfort as a thanksgiving pudding, but alas! yes, alas ! they are as unplenty as double-yolked eggs.