56 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



tors of all our great public improvements, We may next expect, preventive meas- 

 ures against tlie delay and expensive inconvenience attending the transfer of 

 "through-baggage " from one route to another. 

 It may not be out of place here, while on the road, to say a word about the 



HOTELS IN THE CITIES FROM AND THROUGH WHICH WE ARE TRAVELING. 



Public houses of entertainment in New- York are numerous, and those recently 

 built are upon the go-ahead gigantic order of the age. I am acquainted only 

 with two — the old " City " and the spacious " Astor," and he must be hard to 

 please who would not be content in either. 



Of others in Philadelphia, besides the " United States " in Chesnut-street, I 

 have nothing to remark. Few can speak by comparison of many in the same 

 town, because if we become unwilling to abandon any of our old haunts, it is 

 such as are found in Ao^e/s where we have been accustomed to "put up," and 

 been once kindly treated. How sorely disappointed and uncomfortable would be 

 any ^{ the old habitues of the " City Hotel " not to find Willard standing in the 

 bar, where he has stood for the last forty years, like the picture of the vegetable 

 lamb in Darwin's Botanic Garden, with an air of imperturbable serenity and 

 good humor, never eating, sleeping, or moving out of that one spot ! 



Without meaning any disparaging comparison, it may be said of the " United 

 States " in Philadelphia, that unless it may be for the few that remain of your staid 

 old wealthy two-bottle bachelors and white-cravat gentlemen, this superior estab- 

 lishment leaves one little to regret, on his own account, at the closing of the 

 incomparable old " Mansion House," even as it was headed by " Joe Head " him- 

 self. Alas, it seems to be no longer the fashion for the host to preside and " give 

 assurance of a man "at the head of his own table d^hote. With some hosts, the 

 custom, it is true, " were better honored in the breach than the observance :" but 

 the validity of that improvement may well be questioned that would banish from 

 that presidency such gentlemen as Joe Head, David Baknum, James M. Selden, 

 and John Minge. Mr. Mitchell of the " United States " sits at the head of his " la- 

 dies' ordinary ;" and here be it remarked that one great convenience in having 

 gentlemen in the conduct of hotels is, that with modern conveniences and punc- 

 tuality in traveling, ladies may, on emergency, venture to go without special at- 

 tendants, from city to city. 



If there be any fault to be found with this well-lighted, airy, and well attend- 

 ed house, it lies in the seeds of dyspepsia that may be lurking, like serpents 

 among rose-bushes, in viands and confectionary, as various and excellent as the 

 best market in the Union and the last refinements of the culinary art can produce. 



Baltimore is proverbially well supplied with public ordinaries, several, doubt- 

 less, all that could be wished. There is the spacious " Eutaw House " in the 

 west, with very gentlemanly conductors, and other guaranties for safety and 

 comfort. There are hotels near the depot where those who go for solid quantity 

 may satisfy the animal man with railroad dispatch. In Light-street is the old 

 " Fountain Inn," that is anything but light, where Col. Howard and Doctor 

 McHenry, and patriots of the days when patriots meant something, used to dine 

 and drink old rum-toddy with General Washington in Bryden's time. But on 

 the strength of acquaintance with it " from the stump," commend me (as in Bos- 

 ton to the " Tremont ") here in Baltimore, for the ne plus ultra, to Barnum's 

 *' City Hotel," still conducted with all the energy and spirit, and the close atten- 

 tion to small things as Avell as great, which characterized its management un- 

 der its lamented founder, old " King David," himself. Nor must I fail to refer 

 the weary traveler to the " Exchange," kept by one of his best pupils, Mr. 

 Dorsey, for as kind treatment and good cheer as the heart could wish. 



In this utilitarian age, when everything is tested by the cui bono, you will not 

 think it amiss to give publicly a small hint — of which some of mine hosts have 

 promptly availed themselves — to have salt placed at once within reach of every 

 one at the table — one set at least for every three persons. In all industrial en- 

 terprises now the great desideratum, you know, is to save labor ; and the tavern 

 keeper has no right to compel his guests to help each other to salt any more 

 than to bread or to water. Moreover, servants are not so numerous in any of 

 them as to have half their time taken up in handing the salt backward and 

 forward, up and down, from one to another, at the very moment they are most 



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