Through East Anglia in a Motor CarVincent, James Edmund
General
Through East Anglia in a Motor Car
Vincent, James Edmund
Norfolk (England) -- Description and travel; Suffolk (England) -- Description and travel
women, Scots and Irish of both sexes, not easy to move out of a fixed
groove. In any case the pioneer, the paragon among hotel-keepers, who
should attempt to gain custom by setting an example of prices really
moderate, not moderate according to English standards, would almost
certainly court bankruptcy. One swallow does not make a summer; the
certainty of finding one cheap and comfortable hotel on a tour would not
suffice to turn the stream of tourists into the route on which that hotel
lay.
So, perhaps, the complaints of motorists and others concerning the charges
of English hotels (and Irish and Scotch hotels too) may be regarded as
being rather in the nature of letting off steam than in that of using it in
the hope of effecting any real result. The fault lies in the system; the
system cannot be reformed without concerted action of hotel-keepers, of
which there is no present evidence; and, if reform came, the actual
reformers would probably be losers, although the next generation of
hotel-keepers would reap a rich harvest. The process of reform would be,
indeed, something like making pasture out of arable land, a costly
enterprise, the profits of which are so long in coming that it is rarely
undertaken by tenants for a short term. Since that is so we must take our
hotels as we find them, praising some as being a little better than others
when all might be vastly improved. On these principles the "Globe" at Lynn
is recommended, although the "Crown" or the "Duke's Head" may, for all I
know, be equally good. It may be added, too, that it used to be, perhaps
still is, the hotel used by Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, whose Parliamentary
connection with King's Lynn was long. His presence in it, however, argued
nothing. It may have been the Conservative or Unionist hotel traditionally,
as the "Royal" at Norwich is the Liberal House; or again, Mr. Bowles may
have been no less independent in the choice of a hotel, even in his own
constituency, than he was in selecting his lobby on a division in the House
of Commons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account