The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-10
LIMIT TIPS TO 10 PER GENT.
EDITOR BOX WOULD AT LEAS.
 REGULATE THE EVIL.

son-EteVen Dollars to Get Out of a } New York Hotel withs Family and SeIf-Respect Intact.
 Some recent experiences of Editor Edward Box of the Ladies' Home Journal with the tipping system in New York have caused him to write } an article on the abuse of the practice ! and the remedy. He says in part: "A small tip still goes long way in England, a threepenny bit (six cents of our money) being universal tip while a fee of a sixpenny bit (twelve cents in our money) is con- sidered generous, a shilling fee Twenty-Five cents of our money) be- ] ing regarded by Englishman as given J only by fools and Americans Only recently the head waiter of the Carl ton Hotel, one of the most fashionable } of London hotels, said that the average tip which he received was not five per cent. of the amount of the dinning room checks.
 And he smiling1y concluded, that { average is only made possible because } of the extravagant tips Of Ameri- cans.
 ] Other head walters of fashionable London hotels gave their average tips as 3 per cent. of the amount of the dining room bills. Stating these { percentages roughly in American cur rency English tip is. equal to three cents on dollar check, or at the higher average of the Carlton head } waiter, five cents, and only that be- S lans annf Now, I put it to any man: Fancy q going into the average hotel standing ! in any one of our large cities, order ling dollar dinner and giving the ! waiter three cents! If he does not } throw it in your face it is only be- cause he dare not. Certain it is that it's { acceptance will be churlish, if not J actually accompanied by some mutt s tered insult.
 < As a matter of fact, we have no 4 standard of tipping in America. It is A rather a case of every man for him. s self, and generally case of the last man outdoing the man before him. } Where a dime was once court Ieously accepted fee it is now frown- q led upon. A quarter has become the Icurrent tip and even that is beginn- ling to look small in many places and is rendered with an apologetic air and a rapid stride to get out of the pre- sence of the waiter!
 Not long ago I was with my little 2 family in a hotel for barely 8 week. a It cost me $11 in fees to get out of Ithat hostelry, with any respect to my q self or an avoidance of a scene before 4I.A \ ter to fee, the waiter the chamber 2 lmaid, the porter who checked my trunks, the bell boy who carried two si valises to the office floor. the other q bell (always another boy) who carri- s led the valises thirty feet to the bus, s the porter who carried my va1ises S from the bus to the train, the. room J boy who had brought me ice water S} that I didn't want and never touched < and the elevator boy who had let my q little boy ride up and down the eleya- S tor.
 S But what is g. man to do? There q stands the solid phalanx before him, S like a row of so many hungry crows. s Make a scene? With his family around q him? A man of any self-respect can 3 hardly do that. It is unpleasant S enough to do that sort of thing when S he is alone.
 3 T do not blame the help in such S cases; these walters and porters and z boys do what they are allowed to do T by those who employ them--what they S are, in some cases, understood by ho- S Itel proprietors to do when they are en- 2 gagged at scarcely any wages at all, fa5 to s@,aa alSa bD s tips of the guests. My experience z with the better class of hotels through @ out the country is, however that this SI practice is not as general as it is some z times represented to be.
 A But where 8 hotel proprietor is SI known to employ his help below the S normal rate of wages and tells that ., 'help' either in so many words or by S implication to look to his guests tc S pay what he should pay, and what he Sa really charges his guests for-then S individual effort should come in, and S every man should refuse to patroniZe a that hotel. There at least is one point ;, where men can put a peg in this tip Sl ping nuisance to it's detriment M But otherwise there is no denying .s the fact that individual effort is diff Ificult. entailing, as it does, mental un-
 pleasantness. And that no man courts
 or enjoys
 What have wondered at is, that
 hotel keepers, restaurant owners oi
 public purveyors of all sorts are ap-
 parently so blind to the golden oppor-
 tunity that lies at their very doors
 believe there is a harvest to be gath
 tered for many hotel or restaurant
 man who would pay his help a little
 more than they can get elsewhere--as
 they do at clubs; then make a rigid
 lrule prohibiting the receiving of tips
 of any kind, posting the fact in every
 room of the hotel. or in conspicuous
 places in the restaurant, and adver-
 tise the rule widely.
 "Only few months ago this scheme
 was tried by a restaurant keeper II
 the very heart of business London
 and within week his place was toe
 small to handle the people who
 thronged to it. Within month this I man declared that he had made more money on the new plan in thirty days than he had in his restaurant. on tho tipping plan,' during all the previous year. and he had increased the wage: