l was divided
into two sections and the porch was an open gateway. I once lived
there myself for a time and many well-known Calcutta people made it
their permanent home. In those days any number of people lived in
town, over their offices, or in residential flats, and it was then as
now noted for its extreme healthiness and salubrity.

THE GREAT EASTERN HOTEL, LTD.

Was originally styled Wilson's Hotel, and as such it is known even at
the present day to gharriwallahs, coolies, and certain others of the
lower orders. It was started long before my arrival in Calcutta as a
bakery by Mr. Wilson, a well-known resident of Calcutta, and converted
into a hotel at a later period. In the early sixties it was floated
into a limited liability company by a few prominent businessmen,
amongst whom was my old Burra Sahib. It was an entirely different
place in appearance, both inside and out, from what it is now; it had
only two storeys and no verandah or balconies; a large portion of the
ground floor was occupied by shops, selling all sorts of goods, and
owned by the hotel. The whole of the central portion from one end to
the other was a sort of emporium lined on both sides with a continuous
row of stalls on which were displayed the most miscellaneous
assortment of articles it was possible to conceive. In addition to all
this they kept for many years a farm at Entally which they eventually
closed down, and the produce which they then sold is now vended by
Liptons in exactly the same place at the north end of the building.

It took the directors a very long time to discover that a combination
of shop and hotel keeping was not a paying proposition although they
had had plenty of convincing evidence year after year of the fact. I
forget now at what period it suddenly dawned upon their minds the
necessity of making a thoroughly drastic change and altering their
whole policy; nor do I know to whom was due the credit of this _volte
face_, but whoever it was he most certainly earned the lasting
gratitude of the shareholders as well as every one else connected with
the concern, as by his action he converted a chronic non-paying affair
into a thriving and ever-increasingly prosperous one. When they
abolished the shops they devoted their energies to developing the
place into a first-class hotel which it certainly never had been
before, and proceeded to increase materially the residential
accommodation. They erected a third storey, and built