Punch (45.1863)

252

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[December 19, 1863.

HOW, WHEN, AND WHERE?

OR, THE MODERN TOURIST’S GUIDE TO THE CONTINENT.

he travelling Dio-
genes commences
his search for a tub,
let us say at the
Great atul Grand
Hotel, Paris. This
hostelrie is fur
nished with all sorts
of luxurious con-
trivances. For in-
stance, the room
that falls to your
lot is number one-
hundred and sixty-
five, at the top of
the house. ten
storeys high: an

objection is upon
the tip of your
tongue concerning
tbe number of stairs
which you’ll have
to encounter, wlieD,
hey presto! up go s
the room in which
you are sitting, and
before you can say
Jack Robinson (we
contend, by the way,
that this is far from being a natural exclamation for anyone when
startled or surprised), you are landed at the door of your lofty chamber.
Thus is it that the visitor is conveyed to his apartment by means of
Hydraulic pressure, and, whenever he wants to descend, he is taken
down again by a Pneumatic Dispatch Pipe. Mr. Home, the Medium,

might be utilised here, if he could only carry weight, and go up in the air
with the Tourists’ luggage, whenever required. Your boxes are
unpacked by steam, and everything laid neatly in tbe chest of drawers
by a similar agency: in short, as far as our memory serves us, you
are washed, combed, brushed, dressed, put to bed and called in the
morning, all by machinery. Those who hear that there is a small
Nob in every room will set this place down for a very aristocratic
establishment.

The knob, however, is of brass, and, in lieu of a bell, communicates
with a battery that, sends an electric spark into the waiter who is calmly
sitting, it may be, perchance, dozmg, at the end of tbe passage.
Another wire jerks the number of your room out of its place on the
wall and suddenly obtrudes itself upon his notice. The poor creature’s
attention being drawn to your requirements by this really shocking
process, he steps upon a sliding board and glides into your apartment
like an amiable Corsican brother’s ghost with his coat on. Give your
order while the waiter’s in the room; with all these electric-forces
about, there’s no knowing where he will be in another minute. The
menial does not go down-stairs to execute your commands : he knows a
trick worth two of that; he sends a telegram to the cook, house-
keeper, boots, or whomsoever it may concern. Such are a few of the
improvements with which you will meet in the Grea' and Grand Hotel,
Paris. Surely here Diogenes will obtain his matutinal Tub? Le him
try. We did, and this is what they sent us. Nothing earthly oid it
resemble, save a tin perambulator without its wheels. This curiosity

was a tight fit for one, and held, if you could have wedged yourself
into it, about three tea-spoonfuls of water, and being of Nautilus’ shell
shape, it laboured under the disadvantage of not possessing, of itself,
any power of remaining in an upright position. We explained (by the
Hotel Telegraph) that what we required was a hip-bath, and the master
of the hotel returned us the polite answer, also by telegraph, that he
had sent us the only hip-bath in the house.

We changed our quarters, and experimentalised at a smaller hotel.

An intelligent waiter listened to what we had to say, inquired the
a i ount, of water which we wished the machine to hold, and the time
when we should want it, as it was so ofteu in use. This sounded well,
so we told him our usual hour, and went to bed looking forward to the
joys of the morning. Punctually came the Garmon and brought us
a nondescript copper vessel; it might have been a saucepan, and it might
have served for a frying-pan; for our part, judging from its grimy

state, we believe that it had been
used in both capacities; but
whatever it might have been, there
was one thing which it most cer- I
tainly was not, and that was a 1
bath. The waiter informed us
that it was what they called a j
bath, and would we make haste,
as there was another gentleman,
an Englishman, waiting for it. We
generously gave up our claim, in order to send it on to him forthwith,
and we hope he liked it.

Our next inquiry was made at Lyons. Here they gave us a large
flower-pot. This might have served for one foot at a time, had the aper-
ture common to these articles been stuffed up with some more durable
substance than mud.

At Marseilles we were introduced to a very remarkable specimen
of the antique. At first sight we set it
down for a petrified mitre; but the bowl
and three legs rendered this position un-
tenable. Being brazen, it occurred to us
that it was not very far removed from an
inverted helmet: but here again the legs
came in our way and floored us. As to using
it for the ablufionary purposes of a sponging
bath, that was simply impossible. There was
no sitting or standing room in it. We passed
about half-an-hour in trying to invent some
method of adapting this vessel to our needs.

We failed to devise a plan, and ended as
usual by either going to the bath-room or
taking a dip in the river.

At Nice all trouble of exercising our ingenuity was saved us by the
production of an article which the waiter evidently regarded as an un-
equalled work of art. He showed it to us with some pride. “ M’sieu
wants a bath for his apartment; here it is, see! ” We did see: the
thing would have been nothing more or less than a fishing can, had it
not borne an equal resemblance to a slop-pail, and was like neither one
nor the other, inasmuch as it possessed four upright handles, which as
far as we could make out, rendered it useless for any object save that
of ornament, for which, seeing that it was a dirty old green tin, it was
perhaps scarcely qualified.

At Genoa they brought us a tea-urn with the heater in it complete.

At Montone, after a very great deal of trouble, the politest of land-
lords with much delight, assisted by three very civil and obliging waiters,
flattered himself that he at all events had succeeded iu suiting the
English taste, in the way of tubs, to a nicety, and assisted by three
civil and obliging waiters, entered our room in great triumph lugging
in a gigantic Oil Jar. Had he wished to put us quietly out. of tbe way,
by the landlady playing Morgiana to our Forty Thieves, this would not
have been a bad method of accomplishing his design. So far, the Tub
was not yet discovered.