THE UNDERWORLD OF THE CARLTON HOTEL

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7057, 19 February 1910, Page 11

THE UNDERWORLD OF THE CARLTON HOTEL

GIRLS' BALL. FROCK. Smart frock of Indian _lljicn, .'trimIn white tulle, decorated with 6mall ■■ rned with linen insertion, pink roses and silver tiesue.

SOME, FACTS ABOUT A WONDERFUL INSTITUTION.

Save for those few lucky people who chance to own. a palace of their own, the Carlton Hotel probably represents the last word in Insurious living. At the oast of a sovereign or so, a man may cat there a dinner that is a gastronomic, dream of delight, in company with the (treat ones of the earth —the Kins himself has set his sigm-manual to the place by'dining there in the public salla a. manger—and amidst' surroundings such as a multi-millionaire can hardly hope to command in his private lifo. It is a miracle of money and method—especially method. Have yon ever reflected, as you settled down in your armchair in the palm Toom after finishing your friandises, and listened lazily to the noft, sensuous musio played by the hotel bond, on the number of people who have worked that you may eat? There is a small army of them altogether.' . The cooks alone, and their assistants, number more than a hundred. The total staff of the entire hotel exceeds seven hundred men, women, and boys—the population of a fair-sized vilaß°' WONDERFUL KITCHENS.

To visit the -underworld of the establishment is a revelation to the' uninitiated. Here are the kitchens, stretching in well-nigh endless perspective, all spotlessly clean; and fitted with the latest labour-saving appliances. Their number is bewildering. There are cold kitchens and hot kitchens, a kitchen in which only frame ,is cooked, ytrt others where poultry is dealt with and nothing besides, another for plain iroasts. and bo on. Further alone is one where a portly eub-ohef and his assistants wrestle with entrees all day and every day,.from year's end to year's end. There is a vegetable kitohen. a salad kitchen, a sauce kitchen, and a pastry kitchen. They, are all ranged in order. Thus, the hors d'oeuvres kitchen comes first; that wherein the coffee is prepared is at the extreme end of the main central corridor, furthest away from the double flight of stairs, down and up which tho waiters descend arid ascend. The reason for this arrangement is fairly obvious. The man who has dined is content to wait perhaps twenty seconds for his coffee. The man has yet to dine is not content to wait ten for his hore d'oeuvres. When, dinner is beinu served, and in a lessor decree during the luncheon hour, this gastronomic underworld is a scene of bewildering: confusion, or. what seems such to anyone unaccustomed to it. To those who know it, on the other hand, it partakes more of the nature of a beautiful and intricate piece of mechanism, in which the different partß, the wheels and 002 s, are men and boys. THE ifAN WITH THE -BIG VOICE.

An important personage in the scheme, and one whom eye and ear —especially ear —at once single out from the human maelstrom that surrounds him, is the annonceur. He is a big man, leatherlunged, with a voice like a glorified foghorn, or an exaggerated toast-master's. It is his duty to announce, in advance the orders of the waiters in tones that will penetrate to the ears of the expectant cooks in the various kitohens. Thus, for example, a waiter dashes into the fish kitchen for filets de sole Carlton, and at the same time he notifies.the annonceur that the entree that is to follow is. we will say, noisettes de chevreuil, and that the game course will be ortolans (ins raisins

Forthwith, orders for th£SP particular dishes are thundered forth, to reach, in the one case the ears of the ohef in charge of the entree kitchen, and in the other case of him who presides over the Kame kitchen. These at onoe set about fulfilling tham so that ths ordered dainties shall be in readiness the moment they are wanted. This (toes on for two hours or more twice a <lay, the annonceur shouting out orders as fast as his lips can frame the words; yet although there are some twenty different sub-chefs, each knows and acts upon the instructions that are intended for his particular ears. CHAMBEBS OF DEATH.

Away beyond the kitchens, so far away that even the voice of the leather-lung-ed annonceur fails to penetrate there, there stretches a labyrinth of other

rooms. Some of these are kept locked, for it is death to enter them. That, for instance, wherein the electrical arrangements fop the hotol aire controll-' cd. It is a- chamber of live wires, of rubber insulating mats, of red danger signals warning the unwary that ' this and that and the other knob, lever, or projection must on no account be touched.'. 1 ; .■ ;■•-. ■:•■• ', :X ..:.■. -..W-. ■ ■'. ' . There is another door that shakes and trembles as though some gassed giant in agony wero writhing inside in stupsndous but vain en'orts to escape from intolerable torment. This leads to the steel air chamber wherein the air for use in the hotel is kept stored .under pressure, and whore it is continually going through the process of being cooled in summer and heated in winter, preparatory to being forced through filters made of shredded asbestos' that looks like the finest cotton wool. To enter this chamber, too, when' full of air-under a pressure of many, atmospheres, would also, in all probability, spoil death. 1 But the feat would be a difficult, if not, indeed, an impossible one, for if a person were to open the door, the blast of air' that w-ould rush out upon him would sweep him backwards off his- feet. Further afield' yet, hut all underground, mind, are the dining-rooms for the staff, and one notes that -wine Is 6erved with the meals, oven in the rooms set apart for the inferior grades, 6uch as the scullions and. the men who spend their lives -peeling potatoes. For there are divisions many and sharp in the service at the Carlton, it must be remembered, and the gulf is very wide indeed between the head, potato-peeler, and that magnificent being, the head porter, who 19 popularly said to make an income in excess of J 22000 a year. AN ALADDIN'S CAVE.

A, tiny room, with a tiny but exceedingly strong door, proves, on being opened, to be a veritable Aladdin's cave. It is the gold-plate room, and its only occupant is an elderly man whose sole business it is to clean golden plates, and dishes, and epergnes, and such-like trifles. The silver plato is kept and cleaned in another and bigger room; all but the forks, which have an apartment to themselves. For fork-cleaning is a. separate branch of plate-cleaning. It is not so "easy to cleanse a fork properly as many people may imagine. There are, too, a. butcher's shop, a, baker's shop, and a fishmonger's; the latter .with many sub-divisions, for between the man who first handles the fish, and tho man who hands it ready for cooking to the waiting chef, are many stages. .And, of course, there are wine-collars galore, and vast storerooms for non-perishable comestibles. — "M.A.P."