EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS
were not to be neglected. Berchtold is very specific in his warnings:—
"Travellers being never sure whether the lodgers, who slept in the beds before them, were not affected with the itch, venereal or other disease, they should make use of a preventive of infection: a light coverlet of silk, two pairs of sheets, and two dressed hart's skins put together, six feet six inches in length, three feet six inches in breadth, should be always carried along with them in the box. The hart's skin, which is put upon the mattresses, will hinder the disagreeable contact, and prevent the noxious exhalations."[1] The ordinary sheets were laid upon the hart's skin. "Damp beds are very often found in inns little visited, and in the inns where fire is seldom made: they ought to be carefully avoided. … Those who travel should examine the beds to see whether they are quite dry, and have the bed-clothes in their presence put before the fire. If the mattresses are suspected, it will be preferable to lie down on dry and clean straw."[2] "Feather beds and counterpanes of cotton are very liable to collect noxious exhalations; for this reason those who travel ought to make use of the hart skins, described under the remarks on Inns."[3]
To avoid other risks, "It is of the greatest importance to travellers always to have a room to be in alone, and never allow any person (well-known people excepted) to sleep in the same apartment, unless absolute necessity compels them."[4] All readers of the concluding chapter of Sterne's "Sentimental Journey" will recall the embarrassing episode growing out of the necessity of assigning the same sleeping-apartment to tourists of opposite sex.
The perils of travel are considered in a subsequent Chapter, but we here note: "In lonesome country inns, where safety ought always to be suspected, it will be better to permit the servant to sleep in the same room, and to have a wax candle burning the whole night. … Pocket door-bolts in the form of a cross are applicable to almost all sorts of doors, and may on many occasions save the life of the traveller, where desperate attempts may be made by
77
