floors for families; and as no great hotel should be without its facilities for wedding-breakfasts, the Grosvenor boasts a resplendent range of chambers fitted for the especial service of Hymen.

The ground floor is devoted wholly to the public rooms; the dining-room is perhaps one of the most cheerful apartments in London. Unlike the dark salle-à-manger of the Louvre, which is lit by a borrowed light from the interior, its windows look out upon the stream of life for ever flowing to and from the Victoria Station. No attempt has been made to introduce the table d'hôte dinner, as it has been proved over and over again that it is not suited to the tastes of Englishmen. Your Briton has no objection to make one of the three or four hundred guests who quiz each other in foreign hotels, or even at English watering-places; but we decline to depart from our habits of reserve in our own great cities. If any person could have successfully established a table d'hôte dinner in London, Mr. Verey was the man; but he made the attempt, and failed, some years ago, and it has never been tried a second time, at least for the delectation of first-class Englishmen. Since the breaking up of the pew system, if we may so term the high boxes which of old partitioned guests from each other, isolated tables to hold four persons seem to be the fashion, and these at the dinner-hour are generally well filled with guests, attracted by the very good cooking and the admirable manner in which the table and dinner is served.

It is certainly an innovation in hotel charges to be

able to obtain a really good dinner of soup, fish, and joints, with vegetables, for four shillings, and a dinner from the joint, with vegetables, for three shillings.

The lift, which communicates with every sittingroom as high as the third story from the kitchen, distributes each meal all over the house "hot."

The smoking-room is a magnificent apartment, thoroughly ventilated. The ladies are taken care of as well as the men. They have a private room devoted exclusively to themselves and opening into the library, well stored with books and periodicals, which is appropriated to the guests resident in the house. It will be seen that this new style of hotel, of which the Grosvenor is the exemplar, is arranged more like the apartments in a private mansion than the ordinary inns we have been accustomed to, where the coffeeroom, at best, contains a Post-office Directory, or perhaps a local guide-book-the newspaper always being engaged by "the gentleman upstairs."

But the chief points of interest in the hotel are to be sought in the basement. Here, in the spacious offices underground, the real agencies by which the great household above is provided for, lie hidden from the general eye. It is a small town we traverse, rather than mere domestic offices.

For instance, under the road, and opening into the spacious area, we notice the bakehouse. All those delicate rolls which furnish the dinner-table are made on the premises; and, as we pass, the white-capped baker is seen busy with his peel, getting ready the bread fresh and fresh for the day's meal. In the next

arch we see the fish-store-it is a veritable fishmonger's shop, bright with scarlet lobster, glistening with silver salmon, and tinted with the delicate hues of the red mullet, all ranged on the ice-cold slabs. In the next compartment is the ice-house, with its refrigerators, the grand conservatory of perishable delicacies in the dog-days. Some little distance off, water in its liquid condition is to be found. Boilers under the roadway circulate hot water over the entire house; within the distance of twenty yards we pass from the Tropics to the Pole, and witness the arrangements for dispensing either refreshing cold or liferestoring warmth to the population above.

In the basement of the establishment are to be found the usual offices, but so magnified in their dimensions as to be scarce recognizable. For instance, here is the den of " Boots;" but this renowned individual, like our Lord High Admiral, has been put in "commission," and his duties are now performed by a committee of six.

Then the washing-room is passed-a large apartment presided over by an active little lady who passes her entire life amid large mounds of soiled linen, which are ever rising and falling around her like the foamcrested waves of a chopping sea. Curious to see the daily items which composed the mass, we furtively glanced at the Washing-list-a document almost as big as a parish-register,--and "500 towels," "150 sheets," "57 tablecloths," at once informed us of the scale on which things are done at the Grosvenor.

Then there is the plate-room. The amount of plate

used by the hotel may be estimated when we say that four men are exclusively employed in keeping it clean. Regiments of tea-pots, officered by tea-urns, were being examined as critically as a company of soldiers by their inspecting general; and what shall we say of the tea-spoons but that their name is legion? The glass-room is presided over by a solitary hermit, who divides his time between a clever exercise of the muscles of the wrist in rinsing the articles under operation, and a professional cock of the eye in taking stock of its cleanliness: imagine, good reader, having to do this without intermission from year's end to year's end!

The still-room of a large hotel, when in full operation, is perhaps the most bustling apartment in the house its name, therefore, is a complete misnomer. Here all the current articles of food are served out. There are drawers full of tea, sugar, and the thousand and one odd things required at the breakfast and dinner table. A waiter brings a cheque for a certain amount of tea, say a small teacupful, which is considered enough for one, and this he pays for himself at the bar-sometimes with a bone counter; these cheques or counters are filed by the retailer, and are made to tally with the amount she draws from the store. The store or general shop of the establishment is presided over by the wife of the Manager, who issues what is wanted for the day's consumption early in the morning to the heads of the different departments.

In the store-room, the diversity of articles is

extraordinary: there is a chest of cigars, for example, and not far off a hogshead of sugar, or a chest of tea; mops, brushes, packets of black-lead, housecloths, are stored away on shelves with neatness and regularity. It is a rule of the establishment that a certain article is to last a certain time, and when it is worn out it must be brought back to the store to be exchanged for a new one. All these débris are immediately chopped up and destroyed, so that there can be no possibility of putting them into circulation again. Stock is taken of the stores once a month. Thus, as far as possible, waste and theft, those fruitful sources of bankruptcy in ill-managed hotels, are provided against.

The food departments are extensive and exceedingly well managed. The butchery is, in fact, a butcher's shop, with this exception, that every article is prepared for the spit at a moment's notice. The fowls are trussed; the cutlets are trimmed and breadcrummed; the ham and bacon are prepared overnight for the morning meal; the quails have their aprons of bacon-fat properly fastened on, and constant forethought is exercised for the advent of the irascible traveller who wants an elephant steak in five minutes from the time of ordering it, and keeps on ringing the bell until it is served. The larder is calculated to feed the mouths of Gargantua. The kitchen of the Grosvenor reminds us of that at the Reform Club-all the same excellent arrangements, the same labour-saving appliances, in order to accommodate large numbers at the shortest notice. The