The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-28

me in the restaurant continue to tip me You yourself give tips. If l am a bribe taker then you are a briber.
 Now, how can we crfticise employees of the Government for taking bripes
 when we ourselves indulge in bribery
 almost daily. for the tipping custom
 is becoming simply a huge system or
 bribery. New. York stands up as the
 shining example; but what New fork
 does is copied by other cities, and, m
 turn, Is copied by lesser communities.
 Why do we rave at graft in hign
 places when we introduce 1t Tn our very clubs and homes?
 Another serious side of this ques- tion is to be found in the experience of women. Women in New York De-
 gin to find that the walters turn from
 them to men because they do not ex- pect to get large fees. The result IS that women have begun to succumo to
 the evil. Being more sensitive than
 men to any appearance of dtscourtesy
 or neglect, women are apt to overEee.
 That helps to swell the size or the
 average tip, l know woman wno the
 other day in New York restaurant
 had luncheon which cost fifty cents.
 She gave the waiter a dollar and said,
 Keep the change Think of that--a
 hundred per cent on the bill! And yet
 the waiter did no more for her than
 she was entitled to for the price of the luncheon.
 Tt Is a well known fact that women in New York are becoming more and
 more oppressed by this growing evil. They are in a more or less helpless position, more easily embarrassed than.
 men. and more willing to pay to avoid offensiv etreatment. The walters know this and take advantage of 1t. For the sake of women, if for no other
 reason, some effort should be made to effect reform.
 T am surprised that some hotel or
 restaurant owner in New York does not see a great opportunity to win
 patronage by absolutely abolishing tips
 in his establishment. It would be such
 a qualification to go to a hotel office,
 agree upon a price and know that that
 was the end of it that there was no more expense involved. It would be | a comfortable thing to sit in a restau-
 rant and learn from the price list ex- actiy what you had ito pay for meal.
 "A restaurant owner in London tried that plan, and, after several months experience. he declared that he had l made more money under the non-tip- ping system than under the tipping system. We have a barber shop here in Philadelphia run on the same plan. | It Is a tremendous success.
 N'I am sure thaat 1t would be more profitable to win the good opin- ion of the public by paying employees a little more wages | from customers. Even if a hotel man. | ager felt it necessary to add twenty 1 five cents to the price of each room
 in his house, he would still be an un-
 doubted gainer in the amount of bust.
 ness he could do under a non-tipping
 arrangement.
 There is an anti-tipping society in the United States which has, believe. something like 25,000 members. Each | member is pledged not to tip to any one for twelve months; and to meet possible embarrassment each member carries cards which he may hand to l his neighbors. It is said that travel Hing men. and business men in general, 1 nave found the effort to be most use- full. However, I cannot find much
 comfort in refusing fee to a walter and then trying to explain myself by going around the dining-room distri- buting a bunch of cards. But I find
 a growing spirit of protest. Men and
 women alike are anxious to rid them
 selves of the expense and annoyance
 upon this spirit of extortion. But how?
 "As I said some time ago in writing
 on the subject, the Initiative can, in
 measure. be undoubtedly taken by
 hotel and restaurant managers and l others, WnO can, ana SnOuius protect their guests from what is universally
 decried as a nuisance But this is not | likely to be general. Hence if indi- vidual effort is embarrassing. and with
 no thoroughly acceptable plan Of con- certed effort thus far advanced, we
 are still, practically, where we started. | Whether the practice can be altogether abolished whatever method Is adopted, is extremely doubtful It would. per- haps, be more practicable to consider some plan of regulation, some arrival
 at a standard In England the av- craze fee on Q dining check is, in American currency. three. or at the ul- most five cents on 8 dollar. why can not we, even with our national desire
 for greater generosity, be satisfied to go just a little above the highest Eng | fish percentage, and let the standard of a ten-cent fee on each dollar or less expended in a restaurant or hotel be- come universal7 Surely, ten per cent | to a waiter on money that has an i intrest- drawing power of an average
 of only from four to six per cent IS
 generous. to say the least Let the
 dime. too be made the current fee to porters and others.
 "As 1t Is at present. however, men are simply laying up more and more trouble for themselves all the time,
 and the longer the practice goes on inc more difficult it will be to regulate | it Let us confine the nuisance, too, to public places, not allowing 1t to creep