Thomas Cook (34 page)

SECOND LETTER
WRITTEN ON THE PACIFIC OCEAN

Mr. Thomas Cook, writing on board the Pacific steamer Colorado, under date Nov. 6, 1872, continues his interesting account of the journey now being taken round the world by a party of tourists under his guidance: –

Assuming that my letter from San Francisco reached you and was honoured with a place in
The Times
, I avail myself of the tranquillity of the Pacific and the expectation of meeting a returning mail steamer to add a few particulars on American travel, which I think will be of service to strangers visiting the United States, especially those who contemplate a tour round the world. Railroads and hotels are the two great essentials of ease and comfort in American travel, and these institutions differ in their management and provisions from European accommodation. I will endeavour to note some of the most prominent advantages and disadvantages of American as compared with English railways.

The open cars of the American lines afford facilities of contact, and meet the necessities of long journeys far better than the sectional and boxed-up system of English carriages. Conductors have thorough command of trains, and can meet any emergencies of travellers without difficulty. Passengers, too, are provided with many conveniences which cannot be afforded under the English system. The sleeping car and toilet arrangements are necessary adjuncts to a railway ride of one to three thousand miles; and the baggage arrangements are perfect, though a little expensive in the transfer department. Nevertheless, when work is well done most travellers are willing to pay liberally for its performance. When you leave the hotel a Baggage Express Company take charge of your trunks, &c., and you may walk or ride at discretion to the railroad depôt, where luggage is checked by a strap and brass indicator being attached to it, a corresponding brass check being given to its owner. When nearing the place of destination, an agent of the Express Company comes through the cars, takes the brass check and gives a receipt for it, and the luggage is promptly taken to the hotel or other address where it is desired to have it delivered; or, if the traveller wishes to go forward by a following train, a transfer is effected, and a new check given. Baggage not wanted can be left at the depôt by merely withholding the check until it is claimed. The ‘lie-over’ system is also a great advantage. A traveller takes a through ticket as far as he wishes to travel, but he can break his journey at any intermediate station, by simply asking the train conductor for a ‘lie-over ticket,’ and this may be repeated as often as is desired. With our through tickets from New York to San Francisco, we tarried a day at Niagara Falls, a day at Detroit, three days at Chicago, and three days at Salt Lake City, and we might have stopped at 50 or 100 other stations if we had desired. The speed of trains is not equal to that of the English lines. The Pacific express of the Union and Central Pacific lines, in connexion with the fastest trains east of Chicago, only attain an average of about 19 miles per hour between New York and San Francisco, including short stoppages of 20 or 25 minutes three times a day for refreshments, and longer delays at the junctions of lines. It takes about 170 hours to go 3,300 miles, and that includes seven nights in succession in the sleeping car. The ascent of the Rocky Mountains to the height of nearly 9,000 feet, and of the Sierra Nevada to about 8,000 feet, naturally reduces the general average of speed; but the through journey is a wonderful achievement of science, energy, and capital, and our trains consisted of four great sleeping cars and four or five ordinary cars, all full of passengers.

Hundreds of Americans, with whom it has been my privilege to travel in Europe, have extolled the American system of railroad travelling for its cheapness and equality. But these are, to say to the least, very questionable advantages over our own system of selection and fares. The through fare from New York to San Francisco is about £27 sterling – a fraction under 2d. a mile. A second-class fare is quoted at about £21, nearly 1
¹
⁄2d. per mile. But to this first-class must be added 21 dollars, or about £4, for sleeping cars; and second-class passengers are not permitted to take sleeping car tickets – a species of exclusiveness which does not comport with Republican equality. Sleeping in cars is not nearly as easy and pleasant as in the state rooms of the Colorado on this Pacific Sea; and the admixture of strangers and sexes is very repulsive to English travellers. The second-class and other travellers not provided with sleeping car accommodation must have a weary time of it, as their seats afford no support to the head and shoulders, and though a seat designed for two may have but one occupant, it is too short for horizontal repose. There are no second class cars, but the holders of second-class tickets for the Pacific route are generally restricted to the use of the cars appropriated to smokers. The sleeping and drawing-room cars are the property and under the management of an ‘outside’ company, except on the Central Pacific Line, from Ogden to San Francisco, where they are owned and worked by the railway company. In other cases the Pullman Company provide the cars, and work them on their own account. The railroad companies run the cars and have the advantage of the seats in the day time, the Pullman Company charging three or four dollars extra per night for the sleeping accommodation. On the Erie line we travelled from New York to Buffalo, in a really pleasant drawing-room car, beautifully carpeted, and furnished with elbow chairs, mounted on columns, and capable of being turned about in any direction. This was our pleasantest ride in the 3,300 miles, for which we paid two-and-a-half dollars extra (about 10s.) each passenger. It is thus by a double arrangement that a select first-class distinction is sustained.

The third-class arrangement of the American lines compares very disadvantageously with the English third-class. The emigrant train is worked separately, or consists of cars attached to freight trains, and the time allotted to the journey from New York to San Francisco is about 14 days. ‘Hard lines’ for poor settlers who have perhaps sold all they possessed, or borrowed, or depend on charity for the means of getting to a country which owes much of its prosperity to settlers from other lands. We saw an illustration of the troubles of this class in the case of a poor woman and child, who were turned out of the car in which second-class passengers were riding, and would have to wait at a way-side station nearly a day for the emigrant train. Many such, with children, have to spend wearisome days and nights on hard boards, with perhaps scanty food, before they reach their destinations in the Western States, where they are going to enrich railroad companies by the cultivation of their lands and the new territories of the States. In reference to this class of travellers, and to all the humbler classes, the English system offers decided advantages over the American. The spirited example set by the Midland Company last April, and copied by nearly all others, of ‘Third-class by all trains,’ has been the greatest boon ever offered to the large class of travellers whose time is equally as valuable to them as that of the wealthy, and who have less money to spend in necessary refreshments on a long journey. This is a matter that must soon engage the consideration of American railroad companies, and they cannot afford to risk their popularity and good repute by allowing John Bull to keep ahead of them. In the matter of passenger fares, England, with its three-fold system, is quite as liberal as America. There are local rates in America of 2 cents (1d.) per mile, and there are rates of 7, 8, and 9 cents. The short line from Ogden to Salt Lake City – about 35 miles – is charged two-and-a-half dollars (nearly 10s.), with no return tickets. Verily it is almost as bad to go to the city of the ‘Latter-day Saints’ as it used to be to go to Rome in the ‘Holy Week,’ when the most exacting charges were made on visitors. In winding up these notes on railway accommodation and charges, I think the companies on both sides of the Atlantic may learn lessons of mutual advantage.

The transition from railroads and steamboats to hotels is, in many American cities, a very expensive affair, and requires travellers who wish to be economical to be wide awake. On our landing at New York the proprietor of the coach that works in connexion with our hotel, wanted 3 dollars a head for my party, and would not accept 2 dollars – nearly 8s. But we engaged an express waggon to take our baggage for six persons for 3 dollars. We walked across the streets from the Ferry to the Broadway, and there took an omnibus for 10 cents (5d.) each. An ‘independent’ gentleman who went from the same steamer to the same hotel, ordered a coach, and was charged 6 dollars. At San Francisco 2
¹
⁄2 dollars was charged to each from the ferry boat station to the hotel; in returning we paid a Transfer Company 4 dollars for baggage, and rode in street cars for 5 cents each. A carriage for four persons for a single hour was charged 3 dollars and 2 dollars an hour afterwards. In England we can get carriages for 2s. 6d. or 3s. an hour, and in Rome or Naples we can hire beautiful open carriages, with a pair of horses, for a day of nine hours, for 20 francs. Thus, a franc in Italy and a shilling in England are about equal to a dollar in America for carriage drives. The only drawback in the case of London is that it is the worst provided city in the world for this class of sight-seeing conveyance.

We have given a fair trial to the hotel and refreshment room arrangements between New York and San Francisco, and for various reasons I give the preference to American hotels over those of other countries. The prices paid have varied from 3 to 4
¹
⁄2 dollars a day at the Grand Central, New York; the International, Niagara; the Russell, Detroit; the Sherman, Chicago; the Walker, Salt Lake City; and the Grand, San Francisco. The supplies of food at all these houses were simply enormous, and our greatest difficulty has been to select what to eat and what to avoid from bills of fare showing from 50 to 100 varieties. The American plan is to order about a dozen dishes of fish, meats, vegetables, pastry, &c.; a small portion is eaten from each dish and the ‘leavings’ go no outsider can tell where. This service is repeated at least three times a day, besides which a supplement can be had in the shape of tea or coffee, cakes, fruit, &c., for supper. But the best feature of the American hotel tables is that relating to drinks. On every table large jugs of iced water are placed, and tea and coffee can be had with every meal; but though the bill of fare generally has a wine list printed on the back, there is no positive obligation to drink, and custom does not sanction the habit of taking wine and strong drinks with meals. The bar is quite a separate arrangement of the hotel, and frequently in the hands of another proprietor. Americans, if they drink at all, frequently ‘take a drink’ at the bar counter before they go into the dining saloon; but the dinner table is free from that slavery and exaction often seen and felt at English tables, where some old ‘heavy wet’ manages to get in the chair, calls for wine and holds all responsible for payment of equal shares; and if any one dares to object he is regarded as mean and exceptional. I saw at the dinner of the Grand Central Hotel, New York, about 200 ladies and gentlemen seated at tables, and I could only see a single glass containing beer, and not a bottle of wine. I asked an intelligent waiter what was thought of such exceptional drinkers. He replied, ‘They are either English or come from the south.’ The young lady who had that odd glass of beer had an English face, and she did not continue long at the table. The same general absence of strong drink characterized all the hotels we visited; and I felt that it must be a great relief to strange travellers to be freed from the feeling of obligation to drink ‘for the good of the house,’ or to avoid the trouble of being exceptional. Those who think they ‘cannot live without it,’ can get ‘the drink,’ though in its use they constitute the exceptions. The Americans are free from the slavery of the drinking customs of the table. I heard an English gentleman ask an officer of this steamer to drink wine with him, and the reply was, ‘I never drink wine at the table.’ This strong anti-drinking sentiment is powerfully aiding the authorities of Chicago in their determination to enforce the law against the opening of the drinking saloons on Sundays; and the same influence of sentiment is felt in San Francisco, where, on one of the days we were there, a saloon-keeper was fined, and, not paying the fine, thrown into prison for selling drink to boys under 16 years of age. While passing through the States, I have seen numerous reports of cases where actions have been brought against drinksellers, for losses and damages to families occasioned by their supplying drunken husbands and fathers with liquor. The respectable hotel-keepers of America are generally clear of all such charges, as they offer no inducements to drink at public tables, and never treat with disesteem those who altogether abstain.

In American hotels, great attention is paid to the privacy and comfort of ladies, for whom large and elegant drawing-rooms are provided, with separate entrance and staircase, available also for gentlemen with ladies. The first floor is generally appropriated to dining and breakfast saloons and drawing-rooms, for which no extra charge is made. The ground floor and basement are appropriated to the business offices of the hotel, post and telegraph offices, railway ticket office, newspaper and book stands, barber’s shop, smoking-room furnished with desks for correspondence, lavatory, shops for the sale of travellers’ requisites, man millinery, pharmacy, and – generally in the most remote part – a drinking bar. Every guest on entering the hotel is required to enter his name in the register on the counter, and then, and not till then, a bed-room is allotted, and the number of the room is entered by the clerk in the register, which is open to the inspection of visitors and inquirers, the lobby, or central court, being open to the public. Private sitting-rooms are seldom required, and thus the expense of selecting accommodation is saved. Washing and ironing arrangements are generally connected with the hotels, but in this department care is necessary, as washing bills are generally very high. At Salt Lake City I paid 4
¹
⁄2 dollars (nearly 18s.) for washing and ‘getting up’ 30 articles, 25 of which consisted of small pieces, such as collars, cuffs, pocket handkerchiefs, &c. In other places the charges are nearly equal to those of Salt Lake City.