SAN FRANCISCO GOSSIP.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 19 July 1880, Page 2

SAN FRANCISCO GOSSIP.

- # The correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes*: — San Francisco is a noble city, and with its fine clear atmosphered is seen to great advantage. The streets and footpaths, like those of Araeri* can cities generally, are fearfully dirty and badly kept, owing to swindling in Municipal affairs; but with that exception its best hotels, warehouses, shops, and private residences rank with the first cities of the world, In the matter of hotels, 'Frisco is not surpassed even in America, and cerfainly is not equalled anywhere else. There I had my first induction to American hotel life. This is one of tbe institutions of the country. Hotels are not those designed merely as a temporary home for travellers, the chief occupants being resident families. The Palace Hotel in San Francisco sccomodates more than a thousand guests. Some idea may be formed of its size by comparing it with the new Midland Hotel in London, professes to be the finest in Europe, and accommodates but four hundred. In the centre of this pile of buildings is a large area roofed with glass and illuminated after dirk with the eleotrio light. From each landing n colonnade leads around this area, the whole being painted white and decorated with plants and flowers. Here a band cf music plays two evenings a week. Jewellers, tailors, drapers, hairdressers, and other shops communicate directly with the hotel, and can be reached without leaving the prenvses. The dining and drawing rooms are gorgeous with plate glass, and mirrors, and gold. The fare is sumptuous. I'he whole house is heated with hot air, and all the rooms are sup« plied with hot water. Lifts continually moving up and down in different parts of

• the house prevent the trouble of asc»n \- ing and descending stairs. On every landing there are electric bells comnmni* eating directly with the fire brigade, police, and other parts of the city, so that life is made as luxurious and comfortable as can well be imagined. One can hardly wonder that American ladies accustomed to such a life refuse to go into housekeeping. It is said that families were driven into hotel life in the first instance by the scarcity and impudence ' of servants. But this again creates a taste of its own, which regards borne life as slow' and dull. I can see, however that this is telling in many unfavourably upon American society. The ladies have nothing to do bnt dress themselves and appear with their husbands and one child at breakfast fearfully overdressed. They : look pale an 1 languid for want of exercise and ocoupation. This paleness is re* garded as a thing of beauty, to be coveted, for two-thirds of the American ladies I met at the hotels were powdered ; and such a ghostly, sickly style of love« liness I never saw before, and don't want to see again. Largo families are very . inconvenient to people in hotel life, so | the Americans don't have large families j ; they are out of fashion ! An English i mother with half-a-dozen bairns st her knee is regnrded by these American ladies with pity and contempt, Well, everybody to their taste ; but I would . rather have half*a»draen ruddy, rollicks* ! ing bairns at my fireside than one of , these pert, forward, pasty young Amer« > icans, ringed and jewelled, ordering its . own dinner from an elaborate bill of fare, i But I am drifting ; I began this para* .raph describing the magnificence of the Palace Hotel, and I find myself writing ah.-mt powdered ladies and the sraallnes* of their families. I look upon tin's latter question as a very serious one for ■ America. Her old stock is dying out, j Relatively, Americans are getting fewer • every year ; the classes that should mnl- > tiply leaders are falling in the rear. A . great river of immigration is pouring into America from Ireland and Germany and most of the countries in Europe ; :ind these new arrivals are taking posses* sion. New York is already Irish ; San Francisco is in the hands of the hoodlums ; and in many of the little upcountry towns in the West it is safer to shoot a mi n than to seal a horse; while the old f Amer'e m stock — the finest in the world t ■-•which ought to have been at the head, f is dying off. A Eoman Catholic bishop, preaching on the subject lately, affirmed that he know a State in the Union in which there was not one native born child under five years of age ! This is a most serious question for the future of • this country. I conversed freely with ' many intelligent Americans on the subject, and told them that if they had no higher motive, they ought to multiply fos ! patriotic reasons !