ii8 RECORDS OF OLD TIMES 



with many others, can now be found vying with 

 each other in splendid furniture, excellent cuisine, 

 the best of attendance, and not by any means 

 extravagant in their charges, considering the 

 superior accommodation they afford. There is, 

 however, one serious drawback in these modern 

 caravanserais — the guests know nothing of the 

 managers, nor do the managers know anything of 

 their guests. The latter are numbered, and, except 

 in the book at the entrance, the name is unknown. 

 No welcome attends you on arrival, no expression 

 of regret at your departure awaits you. No 

 delightful wife of the innkeeper has been seen to 

 cheer and look after the comfort of the ladies ; 

 nothing, in fact, to associate the traveller with his 

 Inn, or any pleasing recollection of the agreeable 

 evening, with town or country gossip, over the 

 cigar, in the comfortable bar parlour with ' mine 

 host ' at his inn. Whilst speaking of Inns, or to 

 give them their more modern appellation, Hotels, I 

 must not omit a reference to the still more extra- 

 ordinary development of houses for dining, luncheon, 

 and every description of refreshment. I think in 

 this that London is facile princeps. Only a very 

 few years since the 'gin shop,' as it was called, 

 was almost the only place where even a glass of ale 

 could be obtained, and now every street of the 

 slightest importance has its restajirant. Here again 

 we have another innovation of a French name 

 instead of the ' Eating House,' as it used to be 

 called ; we have ' Verrey's,' the ' Holborn,' the 



