A gentleman who has established hotels in England and Scotland, and published a Guide through London, says no traveller need pay at a hotel more than eighteen pence (thirty-seven cents of our money) a day for his room. To this is usually added from eighteen to twenty-five cents for attendance; gas being two cents extra per night. In London, however, such moderate hotels are usually in the business part of the town. In the desirable portions for a sojourn, private board and lodging can be had from a guinea to a pound and a half a week; or two furnished rooms may be taken at four or five dollars or more per week. This includes the service of cooking and serving meals; the tenant furnishing the marketing, which costs from two dollars to two dollars and a half a week for each person. This is the cheapest way of living for a party. Such rooms may be found by looking in newspaper advertisements. Agents make them cost more. It will be easy, by making a few inquiries, to hear of a dozen such places; and as people do not move so often in London as here, the knowledge may be available for a year or two.
In Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other cities, the cheap hotels are found in the very best localities. They usually advertise in Bradshaw's 'Monthly Guide,' and in the newspapers. They have clean beds and nice rooms almost universally. If the traveller desires strictly to economize, he need not pay for meals in the hotel, where 'a plain breakfast' (tea and bread and butter) will cost twenty-five cents, and dinner fifty cents; he can, if he choose, go to one of the numerous restaurants in the vicinity, and dine comfortably for twelve cents: other meals in proportion. These places are numerous and good in the cities of Great Britain. On the Continent, the prices at restaurants are higher, for strangers at least; a marked distinction being made between them and the inhabitants of the country. '_I forestieri tutti pagano_' (foreigners all pay), said a Venetian sexton; and that is the rule for universal practice throughout Europe. An order for roast beef at a restaurant will not cover, as it does here and in England, potatoes and bread; they are charged for extra; from three to five cents for a roll; six or eight for potatoes. Ice is too expensive a luxury everywhere across the seas to be thought of by the tourist limited in means. But if restaurants are dear, the markets are cheap in Europe; and the people of the country usually carry provisions with them. You may see ladies provided each with a small basket, from which are produced in the cars a bottle of _vin ordinaire_ and water, rolls of bread, and slices of ham or tongue. These furnish the simple but wholesome repast. Cream cheeses, delicious in quality, are to be procured in France and Italy, with cooked mutton chops, parts of roast fowl, sausage of fresh chicken and tongue, pork and mutton pies, etc., all obtainable fresh at provision stores. A bunch of grapes that will cost a franc (twenty cents) at the railway-station refreshment room, may be had in the market for one or two cents; and other articles in proportion. The custom of the people, and the abundant provision of such things, will suggest to the economical traveller a method of saving largely in his daily expenses. Those who like tea--which they cannot get well made on the Continent--had better take a spirit lamp and apparatus for making it in their rooms. But little trouble is involved in thus providing for one's wants; the most is in making tea or coffee. Those in the habit of so living will save the expensive hotel meals. In hotels, where there is a _table d'hóte_, dinner costs from three and a half francs (seventy cents) to five (a dollar). The breakfast consists merely of bread and _café au lait_, unless extras are ordered, and those are liberally charged for. Nowhere are travellers expected to pay for meals at hotels unless they choose to take them. _Se non mangiate, non pagate_. ('If you eat nothing, you pay nothing.')