Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1898-09-22
PAY FEES OR SUFFER
TIPS THAT MUST BE GIVEN ON THE
BIG OCEAN LINERS.

The Passenger Who Seeks to Evads This
System of Mild Blackmailipg Has His
Life on Board Made Miserable by the
Employees of the Steamship.
The fee system is more rigidly en-
forced on big passenger steamship
than anywhere else. 1t is one of the
places where servants demand their fees
and tell you the amount that they think
you ought to give them. While the
walters at restaurants and hotels expect
fees for their services and will hint and
may perhaps make it embarrassing for
you il they are not paid they have
not gone SO far as to tell you that they
want fee and prescribe the amount.
Even porters do not do that They come
around, brush your coat and hat and
run the whisk over your trousers, but
it is seldom that they ask you for any
money, let alone specified amount
On the passenger steamers the stew
ards regard their fees as a matter of
right as much as the steamship COM
pany regards your passage money. It is
possible to avoid paying the fees, as
they are not collectable by law, but the
passenger who does not pay them will
have trouble in getting his luggage off
the steamer, and it would be we'll for
him to keep off steamers afterward
where any of the servants of that boat
are employed.
The stewards seem to have some sort
of fee guidebook or black list of passen-
gers who do not give fees, SO that they
can make them suffer on future trips.
Certain fees are regularly fixed and ex-
pected, irrespective of the cost of the
stateroom or the style in which man
travels. while certain other fees depend
on the style. For an ordinary passenger
there are fees to be given to the state
room steward, the saloon steward, the
deck steward, the smoking room steward
and the barber aud bath man.
The fee to the steward who looks
after your stateroom is about 10 shil-
lings. The steward who waits on you
at the table should receive the same fee.
The deck steward, for bringing you an
occasional drink and looking after your
steamer chair and rugs, expects 5 shil-
lings, but he will take half crown.
The smoking room steward expects 5
shillings. and if you are in the smoking
room great part of the trip he feels
that he is entitled to as much as the
stateroom steward or your waiter. A
bath every day on the passage can be
had for shilling fee.
These rates are fixed by long custom.
The stewards can tell whether or not a
man understands the rates and if he will
pay at the end of the trip. If they do
not think that he will, they give him
hints from time to time until they get
some assurance on his part that he
recognizes the obligation of the fee sys-
tenn. If they think he will not pay, he
will have hard time of it. He will
find that his stateroom is not we'll made
up; that he does not get care when he
is seasick; that he is served last at the
table and does not get the things that
he ordered; that the wrong drinks and
cigars come to him in the smoking
room, and that his steamer chair is con-
stantly lost. The servants are as effec-
tive as seasickness in making man s
trip miserable.
These fees are not to be paid until
the last day of the trip. The servants
very speedily find out at which place a
passenger is to get off. If making his
first trip, they are pretty sure to know
it. It is advisable for him in that case
to tell his stateroom steward and his
waiter that he will give them the regu-
lar fee at the end of the trip if they
serve him properly and that if they do
not they will not get a penny. If he
tells them this in the proper way, he
will get as good service as the man who
is we'll known.
The last morning of the trip the state
room steward comes round for his fee.
If the passenger does not offer it, the
steward suggests that it is customary
to give him fee, and that the regular
fee is half a sovereign. If anything less
is offered him and he thinks he can get
half sovereign by refusing to accept
less, he will at once hand the proffered
sum back and say in an insolent way
that he never takes less than the regu-
lar fee
With many passengers, particularly
women, this remark and the tone ex-
tract the 10 shillings. The saloon stew
ard does the same thing The stewards
work in with each other, and if man
succeeds in avoiding the stateroom stew
ard the saloon steward will ask him for
both himself and the stateroom steward.
AS man cannot get off the ship until
it stops, there is no way of escaping
these demands, which will be repeated
during the last day of the trip until the
passenger succumbs. New York Home
Journal.