SAN FRANCISCO.-HOTELS AND CARRIAGES.

Western Star, Issue 142, 27 May 1876, Page 6

SAN FRANCISCO.-HOTELS AND CARRIAGES.

And now to which hotel are you bound? The fashionable house is the Palace, a monster building of seven and eight storeys in height, erected by the late Mr Ralston and Senator Sharon at a cost of about £BOO,OOO, and capable of containing an enormous number of guests. It has above the ground floor no less than 755 rooms, most of them 20 feet square, and none less than 16 x 16 feet. It covers 350 feet by 275 feet, and is truly termed the most spacious hotel in the world. There are three inner courts, the central one being 144 feet by 84 feet, covered at the extreme height of the building with a glass roof. This great courtyard is entered by a carriage-way 44 feet wide, and is surrounded by a noarble-tiled promenade. Fronting the centre court there are on every storey verandahs 12 feet wide, the balustrades being adorned with shrubs iu vases, so that the whole interior is a succession of colonnades. The charges at this beautiful hotel are four dollars gold a day, a bath-room being half a dollar extra. There are five elevators worked by hydraulic power, and seven stairways —but to describe the whole of this magnificent mansion would leave no time for a few words about the other hotels. Next to the Palace ranks the Grand Hotel, which is on the other side of the road. Formerly it was the most famous hotel in San Francisco. It is now somewhat put iu the shade by its gigantic rival. For a day or two the larger hotel is preferable, but fora longer period I should choose some smaller house. The charges at the Grand are the same as at the Palace. Now we come to the older houses, and in this rank may be put the Lick House, the Occidental, and Cosmopolitan. They are all centrally situated, and the charge is 3 dollars a day, bath half a dollar extra. There are many other houses at 2 dels, to 2.50 dols. a day ; but if I were to advise a friend to stay a week in this city of palaces, I should say ‘go to the Lick House.’ There, though there is none of the palatial grandeur and smart novelty of the Palace, there is great comfort and civility at moderate charge, and tho waiting is good, while the diningroom is a sight worth seeing by every traveller. So much for the hotels, which I may add are all centrally situated. One peculiar feature I have omitted to mention, viz., the smoking-room, which each hotel possesses on the ground floor. The windows are sheets of plate glass covering the whole front from floor to ceiling, with no blinds either by day or night to shield the loungers from the gaze of the passers by and vice versa. Here men may be seen reclining in easy chairs, with their feet on the brass rod that stretches low down across the window, smoking the fragrant weed iu idle contemplation of the ever changing crowd of people and carriages that continually roll down Montgomery-street. A stranger stops,

and gazes in; the friend he seeks is not there. He passes on. A boy comes in to beg with a whining tone. Another follows, offering flowers for sale. Yet another comes with newspapers, and in the same way all the splendid writing and waiting rooms on-the lower floor of these palaces are open to the utmost stranger. Anoi her great feature of the largo hotels is that without going outside you can purchase any article of clothing or toilet, and may get your hair cut; while without walking a step, you can telegraph to all quarters of the world. The stranger should be careful about hiring traps. The great distinction is between ‘ coach* and 1 carriage,’ the c carriage’ (which is the cab of San Francisco) being a handsome well-varnished barouche, drawn by a pair of sleek, well-groomed horses, and which cannot be taken across the road under two dollars. The charge seems enormous, and an Auckland cabby reading this may think of raising bis fare next trip ; but remember, 0! Cabby, that your vehicle is far inferior to the one I treat of, and that £1 in Auckland will go as far as £2 in San Francisco. The ‘ coach* is the vehicle before described which carries you to and from the railway station at a moderate charge. But the most popular vehicle is the tramway car, which takes you everywhere for five cents.— San Francisco corres. N. Z. Herald.