The Brookhaven leader., 1883-10-11
Tips In England and America.

The conclusions of the Uncommer-
sial Traveller" are substantially to the
effect that the civility of hotel servants
varies almost constantly in inverse pro-
portion with the fixed charge for attend
ance, because the more the guest has to
pay the hotel-kceper the less the servant
expects for himself; and that the abOli-
ton of gratuities would soon put an
end to the small remaining stock of civ
ility and attention which may be drawn
on by those who think il worth paying
for. Let us pass from theory to fact
In no London club worth the name is
any servant permitted to receive so
much as one farthing in the way of
gratuity. A club-servant who accept
ed a "tip' would be instantly dis
missed; while the member who, by Of
fering the bribe. had violated the regu-
lations of the club, would be liable to
the severest censure from the committee.
Yet in every club not only civilty and
attention, but Obscquious defcrence TO
the minutest wishes of the members are
the invariable rule, the servant know
ing full well that the slightest trans
gressiOn of his duty in this respect
would lead to his immediate discharge,
while no other club secretary would en-
gage a servant who had been dismissed
for incivility. 1t is plain that a hotel
keeper has no disciplinary power over
his guests to the extent of forbidding
them his house because they have feed
the servants, but it is not equally clear
why landlord should not let his SER
wants know that if a complaint for rude
ness and incivility were made good
against them they would be sent about
their business on the spot.
What is, in fine, the material differ
ence between hOtel-waiter and an as
sstant in a shop? We tell both what
commodity we want, and they bring it
to us. Is the labor in laying the break
fast table and bringing us our tea and
toast more arduous than in handing
down a heavy roll of silk or cloth,
measuring, cutting and making it up
into neat parcel? But does the shop
assistant ever expect a gratuity? Do
we ever dream of giving him one? He
is, as rule, a pattern of civility and
attention; and for the constant display
of such qualities the customer is in
debted, first, to the assistants own
knowledge of what is right and proper,
and next. to his equally strong convic-
ton that were he to be rude, and were
the customer to complain of his rude
ness, his employer would very speedily
turn him out of doors. At the same
time it is undeniable that the custom of
giving optional fees to hotel servants is
an immemorial one; that it is intimately
bound up with the oldest of our social
customs; that it is, in short, "'largesse'
"a modern survival of the very ancient
practice of flinging piece of money to
the chamberlain as the guest rode away
from the hostel door. If, on the other
hand, we turn to the United States, we
find country in which prevails a hotel
system the most elaborate and the most
extensive in the whole world. A guest
may obtain nearly all the requirements
in life in an American hotel. There
he can eat and drink and sleep, wire
telegraph messages to the uttermoSt
ends of the earth, read at Chicago by
means of the perpetual tape-worm"
machine the quotations of the Ex-
changes of London and Paris, have his
hair cut, be "barbed" and fixed pur-
chase tickets for the play, read the pa
pers by the electric light, have his visit
ing-card engraved, his boots polished,
and his corns cut, borrow umbrellas
and dress suits by the day or night, and
buy cigars, chewing tobacco, railway
tickets, comic publications, white kid
gloves and mOlasses candy. Essen
tials'' and ''non-essentials" alike are
provided at fixed prices, and no fees
are nominally expected. When the
traveller pays his weekly bill for board
he does not find it supplemented by a
charge per day for attendance; and if
the traveller be really what the Ameri-
cans term right mean cuss,' he may
travel from Cape Cod to the Golden
Gates, and from the Gulf of Mexico to
Washington Territory without, so far
as his hotel bills are concerned, disburs-
ing single cent beyond the stipulated
charge.
1t will be asked how such a system
works. In reply it may be explained
that the unfeed hotel servants are toler-
ably civil, and that is all. The negro
walters are usually obliging fellows
to be obliging is the characteristic of
their race-but when the waiter is a
white man, he is usually an Irishman,
and he takes care, when unfeed, to
make the travelling Englishman aware
of that portentious fact. The foreign
guest at first exults in finding hotels
wherein there is no fixed charge per
diem for attendance. and where, when
he is taking his departure, the servants
are not ranged-a terrible show!-with
hungry eyes fixed on his wallet of dol
lar notes. But in process of time the
travelling Briton is oppressed with a
growing sense of being neglected and
uncomfortable, and by the uneasy per-
suasion that there are those among
his fellow guests who are faring better
than he does. BY and by some Ameri-
can acquaintance lets him into the Sc
cret of faring better. If he wishes to
be attentively and promptly waited up
OH at breakfast, let him slip "a quar-
teri into the walters hand; if he be
anxious to have good dinner, in lieu
of a succession of tepid and tiavorless
messes, let him send down frequent
dollar to the cook, with his name and
his compliments. There is no fixed
charge for attendance in American ho-
tells; but the tourist who wishes to trav-
ell in comfort must "tip," and "tip"
largely. Daily Telegraph.