the Latin
peoples. For foolish prodigality and reckless, ignorant extravagance,
however, we leave our English cousins far behind.

Two American hotels come to my mind, as different in their appearance and
management as they are geographically asunder. Both are types and
illustrations of the wilful waste that has recently excited Mr. Ian
Maclaren's comment, and the woeful want (of good food) that is the
result. At one, a dreary shingle construction on a treeless island, off
our New England coast, where the ideas of the landlord and his guests
have remained as unchanged and primitive as the island itself, I found on
inquiry that all articles of food coming from the first table were thrown
into the sea; and I have myself seen chickens hardly touched, rounds of
beef, trays of vegetables, and every variety of cake and dessert tossed
to the fish.

While we were having soups so thin and tasteless that they would have
made a French house-wife blush, the ingredients essential to an excellent
"stock" were cast aside. The boarders were paying five dollars a day and
appeared contented, the place was packed, the landlord coining money, so
it was foolish to expect any improvement.

The other hotel, a vast caravansary in the South, where a fortune had
been lavished in providing every modern convenience and luxury, was the
"fad" of its wealthy owner. I had many talks with the manager during my
stay, and came to realize that most of the wastefulness I saw around me
was not his fault, but that of the public, to whose taste he was obliged
to cater. At dinner, after receiving your order, the waiter would
disappear for half an hour, and then bring your entire meal on one tray,
the over-cooked meats stranded in lakes of coagulated gravy, the entrees
cold and the ices warm. He had generally forgotten two or three
essentials, but to send back for them meant to wait another half-hour, as
his other clients were clamoring to be served. So you ate what was
before you in sulky disgust, and got out of the room as quickly as
possible.

After one of these gastronomic races, being hungry, flustered, and
suffering from indigestion, I asked mine host if it had never occurred to
him to serve a _table d'hote_ dinner (in courses) as is done abroad,
where hundreds of people dine at the same moment, each dish being offered
them in turn accompanied by its accessories.

"Of course, I have thought of it," he answered. "It would be the
greatest im