The Hotel Cecil.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XIII, Issue 1079, 23 March 1903, Page 2

The Hotel Cecil.

There is to rise on the ruins of St James' Hall, we are told, the biggest hotel the world's capital has ever seen, y It will not be easy to put the town within four walls which stand upon the site of the palace of the Cecils. There is accommodation for over a thousand guests in the 1250 rooms of the Hotel Cecil, which cost £200,000 to furnish. The hotel covers 2£ acres, and the laud on whicli it stands is worth £400,000., The courtyard shelters a hundred and fifty carriages, and there are a hundred uniformed men and boys to look after the people who arrive in thuni. . A thousaud guests can sit ■iown to dinner in the grand hall, where £15,000 wurth of plate can be placed on the tables, t and the small Victoria Hall will seat 500 people. The 'foundations of one part of the building are fourteen feet below the bed of the Thames, and are of solid Portland cemant, laid in trenches 35ft deep and 20ft wide. One part of the hotel is 200 ft from tip to bottom, and some of the rooms drop 30ft into the ground. The kitchen at the Cecil is a wonderful sight to see, bringing to mind the great kitchens in which the kings of the past kept armies of cooks. It takes 50,000 plates, 20,000 knives, forks, and spoons to stock this huge place, besides 5000 cups and saucers. There are 200 waiters, 20 chambermaids, and housemaids innumerable to clean the thousands of steps and sweep the miles of carpet. Four or five hundred persons are con-, stantly employed at the Cecil. The linen is valued at £12,000, and the stock in the wine cellars is said to be worth a round fifty thousand. It flows almost in rivers through 2Q,000 glasses, and even the mineral water bill is a hundred pounds a week.

It is strange-to read, at a time when distress is so prevalent almost within a stoneV throw of it, of the Hotel Cecil's food bill. Hundreds pfgallqns of tea, coffee, and choco late; with SQOO rolls and 5000 pats pf butter, "are uses every 4ayi and the day's menu includes also 300 gal of soupand over 1000 ''portions" of meat. The butcher's bill is nearly £700 a day/or over £30,000 a year, and "£l5O worth of vegetables are bought every week. Fruit is specially grown on the i hotel's own estate of forty-three acres, and here, in green-houses which cost thousands of pounds to build, a do^eu gardeners are always at wor.k lo^kirig after flovrei's and friiit.' Inside the: hotel is a post office, a bakerf, a: laundry, and Turkish baths, and a dozen lifts are pearly always running' There is only pniE} hotel ii> %c \srorld larger than the Cecil/arid "none Digger in Europe. It was at the other-—in San Francisco—where a famous billiard player some years ago had a stran^, meeting. The. bjlljard-/ player once: met &n American in Manchester who had nothing but scorn for the hotels of provincial $ngjan4. " You haven't any. bjg hotels in this country at all," said the American; "if ever X see you in AmericaTll show you what a big hotel is like." Four years later Mr John Ryberts—it was he—-was passing through San Francisco, ariu stayed lor the night at the Palace rtptel. Prpiu t^p day of the chance meeting in Mancljesfcer he had not seen his American friend, but as he entered the hall of the Palace Hotel the boastful Yankee was leaving it. "Ah !" he said, "now lean show you what a,big hotel is like!" *'' " " ' ;

A novel sight is to be seeu along Taiori way-^-horses wearing leggings while pjbughiipg to prevent them being pricked fey thistles, '