THE MARTHA WASHINGTON HOTEL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2716, 22 January 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE MARTHA WASHINGTON HOTEL.

The many admirers of “C. B. Lan- ■ caster ! 7 "will ho pleased to know* that her tour in Canada has been a d-eliglit-ful experience throughout, with the execution of a somewhat painful trap accident in the North-West Territory from the effects of which she had not completely recovered before leaving America." For the rest, she enjoyed exceptional facilities for observing die wild life of the West, as well as getting into touch with the highest intellectual life of the historic cities of the eastern ■provinces. Just before leaving for England and the Continent, sho re-visited New York, making her headcixiarters at the famous Martha Washington Hotel. According to the proud scroll across its stationery, this is the one and only 'women’s hotel in the world, and tlie following extract froma private letter, giving the New* Zealand, novelist’s impressions of this unique establishment will be of interest to many readers: —“Stamped on every envelope in the little green writingroom at the M.W. arc the words : 1 ■lieonly hotel in the world exclusively lor women!’ You don’t pretend to idealise what this- means until you get there. Exclusively for women. Exclusively •for seven or eight or liino hundred ‘women of all ages and nationalities—of the skirt-and-blouse b’ n e, the long trailing one-piece dress type, and the chirpy pouter pigeon coat-and-tail type, there are the women whose luur doesn t match, whose ‘etceteras’ don’t match, whose complexion doesn’t match eit-nev. Up to the top of the whole twelve storeys, along to the last of the 1220 rooms, stretches an all-pervading sense of womenhood. At first you think: ‘How* nice and restful! No smell of smoke, no men to stare or jostle or to be uncomfortably polite.’ But at the end of the second day you begin to positively long for the sight of a man. There are curly-headed, white-gloved negroes on the elevators, and a- halfdozen bald-headed white-and-black. clothed men in charge of some unknown department, and there is one pallid youth behind the book-counter; but these are not the men one sees in other hotels. Occasionally one drifts in to call, twiddles his hat, and drifts out again. They come in coteries to lunch or dinner, each backing the other up. But the irresistible personality of womanhood predominates. “The- big hotel is plain and comfortable, airy and clean. Prices for a room run from a dollar a day up. Meals are ■on tlm European plan; may run to anything. But a dollor a day or rather less will feed the average woman very ■well. The telephone bureau,, the type, writer (a good Hammond) on hire by the half-hour, and the pretty writingroom, shut off by green curtains from the great pink-and-cream meeting-ball, are well patronised. Information bureaux, post office, book stalls,tea room, cafe, restaurants fill up the lower floor. On the next floor is the library—free on paying a dollar deposit, returned when you. leave; also many comfortable and prettv drawing-rooms. And then — all more or less on the same plan; — comes tier after.tier of bedrooms. Hot baths are free at any time (an unusual luxury in America), and a tap of iced water (the American can’t get on without this) is advertised by an electric light outside the bathroom. All lavatories are tessellated white, and, dike .everything else, exquisitely clean. “And the typos of women, the varied ages, from the old, lame, white-haired lady, who seems to have shrunk far away into the oast, t-o the pert- little Call-girl with her big hair-ribbons and her high-heeled shoes and her perky voice as she trips round the rooms, 'shrilling at the top of a nasal voice, high as her shoes, “Miss Brown, 1131!” “Just one more word, for the matter seems of moment. The- waitresses are chiefly recruited from the halt and the lame. Can it be that the proprietor is unusually tender of heart, or can it be that women don’t tip as men do? All hotel service is more or less badly paid. The tips are supposed to keep the waiters—and generally, if you don’t tip, you are the waiter yourself. To a colonial, the one serious complaint against hotels on this continent is the steamheat. I fancy 74 degrees is usual. But it is often much higher.”