WHERE THE BRITISH HOTEL IS WANTING [To the Editor of
the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—It is possible that few people have a wider experience of British hotels than I have had, for I travelled some 20,000
miles a year, from John o'Groat's to Penzance, for over twenty years, and in that time sampled every kind of hotel, from the
luxury type downwards, but there is one matter with which I find myself reluctant to agree in your excellent article. Hot and cold water laid on to the bedroom is not an unmixed advantage. The waste-pipe is, to-me, an unwelcome item, and not perfectly sanitary at the best—soapsuds do not make savoury pipes—and in view of the fact that hotel servants are tempted to use it as a sewer one prefers the other method of water supply.
The hot roll is commoner in Scotland than in England. The Aberdeen " Bap " is a delightful breakfast item, and makes one free of all wish for bread of the ordinary sort. But you certainly make a most palpable hit in your reference to the bad cooking of vegetables. I doubt if I have ever had a well-cooked potato in an hotel in my life, and, with the exception of spinach, rarely any other vegetable. Many railway dining-cars easily beat the best hotels in this respect.
Cockermouth.
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