Untitled

22 THE GREAT LOKE LAND.
overcharging you at the office—no, you have simply to
go without food until dinner-time, or to go to bed by the
light of a jet of gas for which you will be charged an
exorbitant price in your bill. As in the days of Roman
despotism we know that the slaves were occasionally
permitted to indulge in the grossest excesses, so, under
the rigorous system of the hotel-keeper, the guest is
allowed to expectorate profusely over every thing; over
the marble with which the hall is paved, over the Brussels
carpet which covers the drawing-room, over the bed-room,
and over the lobby. Expectoration is apparently the one
saving clause which American liberty demands as the price
of its submission to the prevailing tyranny of the hotel.
Do not imagine—you, who have never yet tasted the sweets
of a transatlantic transaction—that this tyranny is confined
to the hotel: every person to whom you pay money in the
ordinary travelling transactions of life—your omnibus-man,
your railway-conductor, your steamboat-clerk—takes your
money, it is true, but takes it in a manner which tells you
plainly enough that he is conferring a very great favour by
so doing. He is in all probability realizing a profit of from
three to four hundred per cent, on whatever the transaction
may be; but, all the same, although you are fully aware of
this fact, you are nevertheless almost overwhelmed with the
sense of the very deep obligation which you owe to the man
who thus deigns to receive your money.
It was about ten o'clock at night when the steamer
anchored at the wharf at Boston. Not until midday on
the following day were we (the passengers) allowed to leave
the vessel. The cause of this delay arose from the fact that
the collector of customs of the port of Boston was an individual
of great social importance; and as it would have
been inconvenient for him to aitend at an earlier hour for