BRITISH HOTELS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sne,—I have read with much interest what Mr. Stephen. Gwynn has had to say in your columns on the shortcomings of British hotels, and while some of them are pretty bad I don't believe the whole industry deserves to be condemned. After more than three years in England, mostly spent in hotels, I feel that I know something about the subject. The great difficulty is that whereas in France, America, and most other countries the cardinal rule is to please the guest, in England the main thing seems to be to make the guests con- form to the whims of the hotelkeeper.
But if you can find the right place, an English hotel can be about as attractive as any place on earth. With the right management, the old country home turned into a residential hotel presents the most highly civilized way of living that anyone has yet figured out. With English food, the best in the world, but no English cooking, about which the less said the better, the chief complaint against the English hotel is non-existent.
Mr. Gwynn speaks of the excellent English breakfast, the meal in which this country distances the world, and says : " How it affects the American I cannot say." Let me assure him that, to use one of our own expressions, we are strong for am, Sir, &c.,
FRANIC PLACIIY, JR. 2 Adelphi Terrace, W.C. 2.
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