HOTEL ON WHEELS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 202, 26 August 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOTEL ON WHEELS.

One of the most remarkable of the recent inventions upon which the United States Patent Office authorities have been called to pass judgment is a travelling hotel, the designer of which thinks he has filled a long-felt Avant by constructing a portable habitation for _ travellingcircuses or camping parties Avho do not Avish to. be at the mercy of local hotel-keepers. The hotel on AA;heels is made, of aluminum, and is so constructed as to fold up like a railroad car and to appear when closed to be an ordinary baggage car. When the stoppingplace is reached, and the travellers wish to camp for the night, the sides of the car are let doAvn. by means of a series of levers.

The inventor has divided his tra-A-elling hotel into compartments, so that the party, if it be a large one, can be separated in the various sections of the building, occuying, if they Avish, apartments en suite or a single room. The rooms are to be fitted up in the modern style, with all conveniences,' including, electric light, electric bells, electric cooking apparatus, and the inventor is even working on a system that he thinks Avill enable the occupants of the hotel to reach the upper storey by means of an electric elevator.

The furniture designed for the car is, of course, mostly of the folding variety, and can be stoAved away in a very small compass when not in use. W 7hen the . tsopping-place is reached the car is to be detached from the train and taken to a convenient siding, where there is ample room for the spreading of the sides and the elevation of the roof that form the hotel.

It is a matter of only an hour's work for the man who Avill travel Avith the hotel on AA'heels to transform it from a railroad car into a hotel. While the members of the tourist party are viewing the town, the circus performers going through their night's work, or the attendants at a convention or camp meeting, conducting their exercises, the attendant is swiftly building up the light habitation that Avill shelter them for the night.