TIPPING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4812, 18 February 1925, Page 3

TIPPING.

LOOKED UPON AS A BIGHT. EXPERIENCES ABROAD. If colonials who went abroad this year learned nothing else during their travels they at least had ample opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of the art of tipping, which had been denied them previously (writer ITI.JLL” in the Melbourne Argus). On first thoughts tipping might seem to be more of a business than au art. As a matter of fact it is, and generally a very unprofitable business for the giver. Yet there is an art in it. and it lies in deciding who should or should not be tipped, and how much should be given. Generally it is not a question of deciding who deserves a tip. but of who should be tipped in the interests ofl one’s future comfort and well-being. In London—the practice is not so pronounced in the provinces—and on the Continent it seems to the tourist that he is expected, In fact, compelled, to tip “most everybody’’—those who render him a small service and often those who don't. An unfair feature of the system is that it often happens that those who perform the greatest service receive little or no reward, and vice versa. For instance, on one occasion my life was for several hours entirely dependent on the skill of the pilot of a crossChannel passenger aeroplane. Yet on stepping from the machine I did not feel that I was under any obligation to give the pilot a tip, nor did he expect one. Probably he would have been the most astonished man in the world if I had offered him one. But if I had failed to tip the barber who cut my hair a few hours later I would have left the shop feeling like a man who had committed a criminal act. London taxi-drivers are not always content to expect tips they demand them, and their demands have become so exorbitant of recent years that whenever it is possible many who previously used taxis for short journey s now patronise the ’buses. Often those who expect tips are already adequately paid for the services they render, but in some of the leading London hotels and restaurants, waiters are prepared to work without wages and rely entirely on gratuities from patrons. That they reap a rich harvest is indicated by the fact that they have been known to take with open contempt or even refuse ss, or even 10s, tips.

In restaurants every patron is expected to leave a, tip for the waiter or waitress who brings him his flood, and woe betide him who fails to do so or leaves an amount less than that expected He will not soon be forgotten. He is a marked man, and if he wants prompt and courteous attention he will not patronise that restaurant again. If, owing to lack of change or because of some other reaison he is unable to leave a tip, as he walks from his table he feels that everyone in the place regards him as the meanest man in the world, and he cannot reach the door too quickly. It would be almost as difficult to avoid paying the bill as it is to avoid leaving a tip. Strangely enough, some may think, it was in Scotland I discovered a waitress who not only did not expect a tip but did not know what to do with it when given one. When the bill was paid she returned with a small amount of change, which, as is usual, was handed back to her. Considerably mystified, she remarked that it ,was due to us, but we replied that it was “all right.” By this time she was apparently convinced that we were not in our right minds, and, advancing to the counter, gave the money to the cashier! Perhaps ere this she-has learned to take tips, perhaps to expect or even to demand them, but we like to think not. To us she continues to shine like a good deed in a naughty world. On the Continent tips are calculated on a 10 per cent, basis —one is expected to give as a tip one-tenth of the total outlay, whether it be to the taxidriver, the barber, the waiter, or the shoeblack. Theatregoers must tip the attendant who sells them programmes and the ushers who show them to their seats. Not only are tips expected. in many cases they are taken out of the change. If it is not offered it is asked for. On one occasion a diner left flor a Parisian waiter as a tip two francs, whereas, on a 10 per cent, basis, the amount should have been 2 trancs 10 centimes. Ten centimes are worth about three-tenths of a penny, but the diner had not reacned the door before the waiter overtook him and demanded another 10 centimes When one is leaving an hotel even if his stay has been only for one night, it seems that practically the whole staff expects to be tipped before he leaves. By some mysterious means they seem to divine the exact moment at which he will present himself at the office to pay his bill.' Then thej dart forth from doorways, from behind pillars, from dark recesses, and from unsuspected lairs, where they have been lying in wait for their helpless quarry. One seizes his bag, another insists on brushing his suit while perhaps a third (generally the head waiter) solicitously asks whether his stay has been pleasant. That is his way of saying, “Now is the time to tip me.” When I had paid the bill at an hotel in Genoa, where, with a companion, I had spent one night, 1 found no fewer than five employees, from the head waiter to the lift-boy, ranged alongside the cashier’s desk like a guard of honour. They were all full of hope. Some of them we had not even seen previously, but no doubt each was convinced that he had contributed, if only in a. small way, to my comfort. By throwing his diminutive frame across them in such a way that it practically meant wo had either to tip him or step over liis body, the lift-boy effectively blocked the stairs hading to the street