Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1911-01-03
GETTING NEXT TO THE GRAFT
Publicity Cuts Into the Profits of
Tipping Trust In New
York.

The profits once garnered daily by the
one-man monopoly in the big hotels and
restaurants in the Lobster Palace" dis
trict OF New York has dwindled percep-
tlbly in the last few months, according to
one who should know. The authority for
this Is man who has been in the employ
OF the Tip trust" part of his duty being
to receive and audit the cash turned in
by the uniformed boys who are employed
to squeeze coins out OF the gullible public.
The falling off in the daily receipts from
this source of hotel and restaurant graft
began some six months ago, when the
public discovered through the newspapers
that the uniformed boys who check your
hat and coat don't get the coins that the
patrons give them, but that the money
goes to a man who pays for the privilege
of keeping the boys In these places.
For several years this trust in tips
reaped a fine harvest. The person who
conceived 1t and put It in operation gath
cred in profits at an astonishing rate. Be
ginning with only a few boys, he soon
found his industry growing to a point
where he could advantaseousy employ
scores of them. Every boy represented an
asset in the traffic. If the boy turned in
less than s. a day he was not looked upon
as fit for She trade of making the public
stand and deliver every time it entered a
hotel or restaurant
The inventor of the monopoly was an
ingenious person. He realized that for the
boy who checked the hats and coats there
was great temptation to pifer part OF his
days plumber. Not infrequently the boy
would take in as much as $40 a day. To
assimilate a share of this seemed so ride
ulously easy that something had to be
done.
There was no way OF removing the temp
tauon. But there were other ways of
getting at it. He tried several plans, one
Of them being a system of rewarded espion-
age among the boys themselves. This
worked well enough until the boys got to-
gether and decided that the rewards for
turning reformer were less profitable than
striking daily dividends on their own &C
count
Then the tip monopolist hit upon the in
genious plan Of putting every boy in a
pocketless uniform and that solved the
problem. The boys had to be content with
the IS or "a week wages allowed by their
employer.
The employer has always exercised the
greatest care and caution in employing
boys for this business of making patrons
of hotels and restaurants pay toll for wear
ing hats and coats. He wants only those
who are endowed with wistful look which
seems to say:
81 am the sole support OF widowed
mother and seventeen hungry brothers and
sisters"
Put that kind OF a boy at the hotel coat
and-hat room and who would have the
courage to check his property and not give
away a dime?
I'D be glad to give you a dime for taking
care of my hat and coat while was at din
ner." said one prosperous looking man on
leaving a Times Square restaurant day or
two later, to the uniformed boy at the
door, but 1 won't do it because l happen
to know that you wouldn't getShe money"
Apparently he was only one of a good
many thousands who take the same view
Of the situaton.-New York Times.