INN-CHARGES.
AT a season when Parliament leaves us at leisure to think and talk about our private business, the Times usefully takes under its patronage the extensive and ill-used clientele of wayfarers at inns; denouncing the charges to which they are subjected, and calling for a reform of landlords' bills. The travellers gratefully respond; "A. Victim," "Another 'Victim," "A. Traveller,' "One of the Shorn," "Cosmopolite," and more of the host, support the general argu- ment of the journal with special instances; an occasional innkeeper comes forward to claim exemption for his own establishment, ad- vancing a tariff, or pleading "circumstances." Upon the whole, however, it does not appear to us that the special instances greatly advance a scientific insight into the difficulty ; which is to get at reasonable prices consistently with our social arrangements.
For to a great extent the English traveller is himself his own fever, and pain. He stands nervously in awe of being thought to be poor. He would not always mind being thought stingy, if stinginess were not the vice of poverty in most cases; and there- fore he will rather hate landlord and waiter than remonstrate. Remonstrance, indeed, would generally come too late, and there- fore the inn-frequenter should take up the controversy at an earlier stage. In many hotels it is now the custom to have a fixed tariff of charges, and if the traveller pleased he might ask to see the tariff before entering the house. H this were often done, and tra- vellers were always to prefer an inn with a tariff to one without, most inns would soon have their tariff. But here again the shy Englishman does not like to proclaim himself at the threshold of the; inn as one who "cannot affoid " a dignified scale of charges.
The complainants in many instances overlook the ingredients of price. - In some of the bills advanced we see "dinners" set down ab rates which, with the numbers at table' would be equalled by taverns in London that are considered to be economical. Some charges, no doubt, are exorbitant ; "wax lights," for instance, being a -frequent item to an amount which cannot measure any probable consumption.' But it is evident that the casual customer at an inn, expecting to have things always in a certain state of completeness, must pay, not only for actual consumption, but for the maintenance of the establishment during the intervals when it has no custom_ The total charge of the establishment must be spread over the total number of customers during the year, with a fair profit ; and, exorbitant as the casual customer may find the charges on his visit, it is probable that the ledger of the landlord would not show any exorbitant return. No doubt, this is a bad system. The landlord pays for things, in many cases, that the customer does not want ; but the customer judges so much by ap- pearances, that he himself would avoid the homely inn, where he would be charged more closely according to consumption, because he would presume, and not-always unjustly, that the homely inn would be wanting in comfort and in that savoir faire which is so large a part of real comfort. If the inn-landlord, as the house- landlord charges "empty rate," were to charge upon his incoming tenant empty rent, the tenant would refuse to pay it ; yet it must be paid out of the pocket of the incoming tenant : at inns, the landlord calls it " wax lights." Now this species of charge would be reduced for the tenant, and would cease to be an odium upon the landlord, by any arrangement which should render inn- custom more regular in its course, or which, on the other hand, should enable inn-proprietors to accommodate their preparations and outlay more carefully to the fluctuations in custom. The traveller who claims to be charged according to his con- sumption forgets that both he and the landlord labour severally under a disability which obstructs that plan of charge; and in this respect the position of the traveller is anomalous. The landlord must always be prepared even for the customer that comes not; and therefore he cannot arrange by a well-understood bargain. To a certain extent the landlords, especially of the less successful class, prepare upon speculation ; and, victims themselves, they have to victimize the first traveller they can catch. On the other hand, the traveller, coming suddenly to the place, often in a hurry, prevented from deliberate inquiry, sometimes by pretisure of busi- ness and sometimes by pressure of recreation and the inconveni- ence of introducing commercial topics to embarrass the steps of a party of pleasure, is shut out from making a bargain. He orders like a Bashaw, and he has to pay like a Yew on the rack ; each party standing inexorably on his right, and regarding the other almost as an antagonist. At the best, that is to say' at hotels where they keep a tariff, the traveller only learns his fate after he has so far committed himself as to have travelled to the inn-door, and has incurred the charge for his carriage—has perhaps brought his fellow travellers into a position where chaffering and retracts- tion are vexatious mementos of the outlay, often real infractions of hospitality. Now this difficulty would be removed if it were possible to introduce a plan to which we referred some time ago— that is, to establish either an innkeeping company, with inns be- longing to it in all the principal towns upon a line of travelling, or effecting a union of existing inns belonging to that company, the union establishing uniformity of accommodation and of charges. Were this done, the traveller who had once entered an inn belong- ing to the union would be acquainted with its style of accommo- dation and its scale of charges' and would know, therefore' long before he reached the door of the inn, say in Birmingham York, or Edinburgh, how he should be served, and what he should have to pay, from his knowledge acquired in London or Manchester. We believe that a combination of this kind would attract to itself nearly the whole stream of travellers ; the exceptions consisting of persons specially bent upon ostentation, upon quiet, or upon saving by some wonderful process of personal exploration.
There would be various reasons why, under such a system, land- lords would be able to cooperate w i
'with their customers n securing an economy more consistent with commercial principles than is at- tainable under the present plan. In the first place, the tendency would be to impart more regularity to the stream of custom ; and thus what we may call the guarantee-charges or empty rent would be greatly reduced. Secondly, by a very simple arrangement of the details, it would be possible to let the traveller choose his first, second, Or third class of accommodation, without troublesome and mortifying minuteness in making his selection of room or dinner. Thirdly, as the custom migrates according to season from one ',art of the union to another, the arrangement of the combined land- lords might follow those changes ; waiters and stores, not usually under such demand in London during the autumn, might be trans- ferred to the sea-side or Northern branch of the league ; and thus the aggregate cost of all the establishments would be reduced in amount, and the dead-weight of the off season would be propor- tionately contracted. Thus the positive expenditure would be less, and the cost of the traveller of course proportionably brought down; besides the advantage of certainty beforehand. There are many subsidiary conveniences which might be attached to such a combination, and which we need scarcely exemplify,— such as a general register, transmitted by telegraph to every branch, of all the visitors and their movements ; a receipt of letters or par- cels at each branch for all the rest; bespeaking of accommodation beforehand at any house for any other branch, and so forth. It often happens that the traveller wishes to proceed in.dependently of his luggage ; and here it is evident that luggage received from a known customer could easily be arranged to meet him at any part of the journey, lodged in his own room, and only awaiting his own key to unpack it.
The capabilities of such a system speak for themselves ; and it is only surprising that English enterprise has not already supplied so obvious a want.
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