COLONIAL HOTELS.

Waikato Times, Volume VI, Issue 332, 30 June 1874, Page 2

COLONIAL HOTELS.

Beforr I eume to the colonies I was nntler the impression that when a traveller engaged a sleeping apartment in an hotel he was entitled to have the use of it. I tind I was wrong. My untravelled nnocence had lod me into error. In some colonial hotels it is by no means an uncommon thing for a person retiring to rest, fondly hoping to enjoy a good night's aleep, to find some favored stranger wrapped in sound slumber upon the very b&l that he had imagined his own. Two acquaintances of mine once arrived at an hotel in the colonies where I happened to be staying, and asked if they could be accommodated with sleeping apartments for the night. " Yes, they could," was the reply, and they were shown into a room containing two stretchers. The furniture was neither good nor extensive, but they were glad of a. place to, rest their tired frames and so they accepted this apology of a bedroom, deposited their traps therein, and desoended to the bar to swell the colonial revenue by the consumption of certain dutiable articles there exposed for sale. Regardless of their doom the pair of victims drank and made merry. They would scarcely havo sipped their nobblers with so much gusto had they been aware of what was in store for them. About 1 2 o'clock; (midnight), it was earned turn. con. that a retreat should be effected to the shelter of the bedclothes, and they made for the apartment they imagined their own. Something under a quarter of an hour was spent in endeavoring to find a candle or lamp, by the light of which they might divest themselves of their clothes. Then they gave it up as a bad job and decided to retire by the light of the moon instead. One struck a match and followed by his mate " went" for his bedroom. All at once Dick (the foremoßt one) stopped short, with a perplexed expression on his countenance, "Tom," says he, what tho deuce is the meaning of this /" Tom followed the direction of his mate's eye and discovered one pair of top boots and one pair of water-tight lace ups quietly reposing on tho mat outside the door. Now, Tom was not a man naturally gifted with a quick apprehension, and there were times when his logic was not altogether faultless. But in , this ca&o the most obtuse mind cv ild scarcely fail to

coino to tlio conclusion tliat there had recently been human eyes inside those boots, which had propelled them to their present resting place, and there could be very little doubt that in all human probability those sielf same legs were at present snugly eacorced. in the very sheets between which Dick had intended to seek repose. So being a practical man lie made no reply to Dick's question, but struck another match, made use of a rather profane exclamation, turned the handle of the door and rather roughly entered the bedroom. What he there saw fully realized his expectations. A long formidable looking man with a big beard and massive jaw was [ snoring comfortably in one bed, and a very wilylooking gentleman occupied the other. Neither looked as though he would be the most agreeable companion in the woi*ld if disturbed, so thinking discretion the better part of valor, our two friends slowly and reluctantly retired. After vain wanderings through the house, " seeking rest and finding none," they decided to cotue to an anchor on the floor of an empty sitting-room and try to snatch an hour or two's sleep at all events. Both were close to the boundary of dream land, when to their utter dismay they found that even yet they were not destined to cross it, for streaming down the corridor and into their tortured ears floated the well-known strains of " Rosalie the Prairie Flower," performed by an amateur, whose zeal in the cause of mnsic far exceeded his ability to produce it, upon a cracked fiddle (I think it was.) For one solid hour did our friends pace irp- «.nd down the little parlor, heaping muttered execrations upon the head OT their torturer whose devotion to " Rosalie " appeared to know no bounds, until at last, exhausted nature could hold out no longer, they sank upon the floor and fell into a troubled sleep. At break of day they rose and proceeded" to interview the landlord of this colonial hotel. His reply was characteristic. He said, " Well, you see, the gentlemen who were in No. were old customers of mine, and that was the only room in the house to put them in." But " confound it," chorused the verdant pair, " You let it to us." "Can't help it, gents," replied this independent Boniface, bustling off to serve an early customer to his "morning." "Well, I never," said the unsophisticated Dick. Tom said nothing— his feelings forbade utterance. Ihey did not stop very long in that hotel. It wasn't a good thing. But, seriously, if the main facts of this tale are true — as they are, some little alterations ai'e required in the manage- . ment of coloniol hotels — are they not 1 I shall ■ make a few observations on the cuisine of these establishments, and then I have done. In any of ; the remarks I have made, lam far from intending . to include all colonial hotels in one sweeping conl denmation, nor would any sensible man imagine ; such to be the case. I speak only of extreme cases, and even then, regarding any of the Kttle inconveniences I have referred to rather in the light of - a good joke than anything else. r Viator.