 | Saratoga in 1901 |  |
ELI CRAZY ON STATISTICS.
MULTIPLICATION, ADDITION, AND SUBTRACTION.
Congress Hall, Saratoga, Aug. 23.
Statistics are my delight. There is something very ludicrous
in a row of figures to me. I am not a commercial man, yet I
never see a tailor's bill or a washing list without feeling funny.
The pages of a Patent Office Report, when they begin to reach
up toward 1,486, make me laugh too numerous to mention.
One day a man told me there were just exactly 79,472 hairs
on a cat's back. I was completely upset at the man's statistics.
I laughed for weeks. I suppose commercial people laugh at my
literary work too. I have seen these votaries of commerce laugh
at my most serious statements. When I stated the other day
that Saratoga was exactly 126 years old, but on account of the
short season here the town had existed but 37 years, commercial
people laughed at my exactness.
You have no idea how hard it is to get your statistics right in
Saratoga. The sexton was inclined to exaggerate the number
of graves in the cemetery. When I asked him how many people
he buried a day, he asked,
“How many do they bury in Ballston?”
He has an exalted pride in surpassing the Ballston cemetery.
If more people should die in Ballston than here, he would be a
ruined man. Hence his desire to make his grave-yard show to
the best advantage. When I asked him precisely how many
young people came from Congress Hall during the fashionable
season to sit on the benches, he answered quickly, 536. I found
out afterward that there were in reality but 492.
So with Wm. Leland. Yesterday I asked him how many
guests he had. He answered readily, 4,689.
“How can that be?” I asked, “when you have only 824 rooms?”
“Well, most of them stay at Congress Hall and the Clarendon.”
I have some trouble in getting at the ages of the young ladies
here. Yesterday I remarked to a mother—
“Ah, I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter here five
years ago.”
“Yes,” she said, “Mary was fourteen years old then.”
I took Mary to the ball that summer, and she wore a court-train
dress. I thought she was a young lady, but I must have
been a victim of misplaced confidence if she was only fourteen,
I must have had queer taste then. I don't look at a young lady
now under nineteen.
There is one young lady here reported to be worth $14,000,000.
She has sixty-nine beaux. Yesterday one dropped off. He said
he'd been fooled by the statistics. The young lady's father is a
well-to-do grocer, and he showed me a letter from New Orleans
to prove it. It is wrong thus to deceive unsuspecting young
men. Up at the Clarendon they never talk about wealth. Their
forte is pedigree. One lady said her family had fought in the
Revolution for twenty-one generations—one uncle was still
fighting. These are the kind of people I like. They don't gloat
over the multiplication table.
Commerce is vulgar.
MORE STATISTICS.
To-day I have been in silent communion with my old statician.
Together we have revelled in statistics. We got hold of the
steward of Congress Hall. He has a good memory and seventeen
books full of figures to refer to. His name is J. D. Crawford.
He stays down in the rear of Congress Hall, where all the provisions
for the Hall are received. He has two boys, who do
nothing but count, multiply, and divide. (They count on living
an easy time, multiply Crawford's cares, and divide the profits.)
I want you to understand that my statistics are exact. I take
them from the books. I “went for” Crawford thus (“went for”
is quoted from Bret Harte):
“How many chickens do you use per day, where are they gotten,
who gets them, and what do they cost apiece?”
Crawford—“We use 900 chickens daily. We have 10 chicken
men in Washington and Saratoga counties. They travel all the
time. The chickens cost 31 cents apiece.”
“Where do you get your meats, why do you get them there,
and who gets them?”
Crawford—“Our beef comes from New York. We use 1,000
pounds daily. C. L. Williams is our beef man. We only use
the rib and loin of a beef. It costs 25 cents per pound. Our
mutton costs 18 cents, barring it's lamb, then it costs 15 cents.
It comes from our butchers here. The reason we get our beef
in New York is because if butchers here were to furnish it they
would be overstocked with an excess of coarse meat. We only
use the best cuts. We pay $2 per hundred freight on beef from
New York.”
“Eggs?”
Crawford—“We use 800 eggs per day. They cost 25 cents
per dozen. B. Brigs furnishes them from Washington and
Saratoga counties.”
“Butter?”
Crawford—“We use 300 pounds daily. It costs 25 cents per
pound. It comes from our farmers. If I run short I raise the
price a cent or two, and a tun of butter will come in in a day.
The farmers hear of these little advances very quick.”
“Peaches, apples, melons, nuts, fish, and soft-shell crabs?”
Crawford—“Mr. Williams, who furnishes the beef, sends these
from New York.”
“Berries?”
Crawford—“Mrs. Morris furnishes the berries from North
Greenfield Centre. She keeps 20 women picking all the time.
She furnishes 200 quarts of blackberries and red raspberries per
day—price 18 cents per quart.”
“Woodcock and game?”
Crawford—“Our woodcock and game comes from the fields
own hunters. Woodcock cost $1.20 per pair, trout 60 cents, and
black bass 50 cents per pound. We get our Spanish mackerel
and salmon from the sea and from Pennoyer and Van Antwarp's,
in Saratoga. We have had as many as 800 woodcock and 1,500
chickens on ice at one time.
“Our game makes a good deal of trouble. It is from this the
waiters make their perquisites. If we put woodcock on the bills,
125 waiters are sure to want them whether the guests ordered
them or not. Just imagine 125 crazy waiters shouting, fighting,
and scuffling for woodcock.
“The cook-room becomes a pandemonium, and it frequently
resolves itself into a question of physical strength as to who shall
have the best dishes. The waiters only stay two months, so they
don't care much about discipline. Each one fights for his `own
table.”'
“Then, if you were a guest, you would pick a table with the
strongest waiter?”
“Just so. A big fellow is sure to knock all the little fellows
out of joint, and secure two plates of woodcock. But don't tell
the hotel people this—they'd all want the big waiters.”
Congress Hall cost $750,000.
Length of exterior frontage, 1,200 feet.
Number of rooms, 600.
Number of doors, 900.
Number of windows, 1,200.
Accommodations for 1,200 guests.
Carpeting, 7 acres.
Length of halls, 1½ miles.
Ball room cost $6,500.
Proprietors, H. H. Hathorn, R. H. Southgate, and C. F.
Southgate.
Room clerk, Frank H. Hathorn; Cashier, E. H. Rodgers;
Counter clerks, F. H. Hathorn, Union Springs, N. Y., and D. B.
Young, Saratoga.
THE OTHER HOTEL STATISTICS.
Grand Union; cost $800,000; five stories high; 824 rooms;
1,474 doors; 1,890 windows; accommodates 1,700 guests; carpeting,
9 acres; length of halls, 1¾ miles; length of exterior frontage
1,280 feet. Owned by A. T. Stewart, and kept by the well
known Jos. H. Breslen and Peter Gardner—Wm. Leland and
Warren Leland having gone to keep a fashionable hotel in
Alaska.
The Clarendon is a large frame structure. No house in
Saratoga excells it in good repute. It accommodates 450 people.
Worth $250,000. Kept by Chas. E. Leland.
The American is the old city hotel—50 years old. Accommodates
300 guests. Charmingly situated on Broadway. Value
$150,000, kept by W. H. McCaffrey.
The Columbian, kept by Jerome Leland. Value $100,000.
Accommodates 150 guests (burnt Sept. 14th, 1871).
The other hotels are the Marvin House, by A. and D.
Snyder (150 guests); Continental, Harry De Mars (150
guests); Crescent, by Dr. Hamilton (100 guests); Pitney's (40
guests); Dr. Strong's. Now rising like a Phœnix, comes Jos
H. Breslin's new Hotel, extending from Dr. Hamilton's, away
over towards the Clarendon, and capable of accommodating
600 guests. Temple Grove House, Mr. Dowd (150 guests);
Mont Eagle Park Place (burnt Sept. 14); Mansion House,
Commercial, Washington Hall, Broadway House,
White's and the Pavillion.
“How is that for statistics?” I asked of my old statician.
He made no reply but bent his head low and cried for joy!
“O!” he murmured, “such a day with figures and the multiplication
table, is worth a life time of flirting and round dancing?”
His mind was so exercised, that as I left him he went on
repeating to himself, “6 times 1 are 6; 6 times 2 are 12; 6
times 3 are 18—.”
| Saratoga in 1901 | |