e time to some peculiarities,
which I must not omit to point out, as they affect society. Let me
first describe the interior arrangements of a first-rate American hotel.

The building is very spacious, as may be imagined when I state that in
the busy times, from one hundred and fifty to two, or even three
hundred, generally sit down at the dinner-table. The upper stories
contain an immense number of bed-rooms, with their doors opening upon
long corridors, with little variety in their furniture and arrangement,
except that some are provided with large beds for married people, and
others with single beds. The basement of the building contains the
dinner-room, of ample dimensions, to receive the guests, who at the
sound of a gong rush in, and in a few minutes have finished their
repast. The same room is appropriated to breakfast and supper. In most
hotels there is but one dining-room, to which ladies and gentlemen both
repair, but in the more considerable, there is a smaller dining-room for
the ladies and their connexions who escort them. The ladies have also a
large parlour to retire to; the gentlemen have the reading-room,
containing some of the principal newspapers, and the _Bar_, of which
hereafter. If a gentleman wants to give a dinner to a private party in
any of these large hotels, he can do it; or if a certain number of
families join together, they may also eat in a separate room (this is
frequently done at Washington;) but if a traveller wishes to seclude
himself _a l'Anglaise_, and dine in his own room, he must make up his
mind to fare very badly, and, moreover, if he is a foreigner, he will
give great offence, and be pointed out as an aristocrat--almost as
serious a charge with the majority in the United States, as it was in
France during the Revolution.

The largest hotels in the United States are Astor House, New York;
Tremont House, Boston; Mansion house, Philadelphia; the hotels at West
Point, and at Buffalo; but it is unnecessary to enumerate them all. The
two pleasantest, are the one at West Point, which was kept by Mr
Cozens, and that belonging to Mr Head, the Mansion House at
Philadelphia; but the latter can scarcely be considered as a hotel, not
only because Mr Head is, and always was, a gentleman with whom it is a
pleasure to associate, but because he is very particular in whom he
receives, and only gentlemen are admitted. It is more like a private
club than any thing else I can compare it to