THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 28, 1912. "TIPPING."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10570, 28 February 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 28, 1912. "TIPPING."

A recent cable stated that a determined effort was being made in the Old Country to abolish the system of "tipping." Those Now Zealanders who have had occasion in recent years to visit the Motherland have been astounded at the proportions to which the system has grown. From the time one puts his foot upon the steamer at the New Zealand port, until he is at his hotel again on the return, it is one continual "Tip, tip, tip." The thing is a perfect curse t) the traveller. Nobody lias the slightest notion when ho reaches England what it is going to cost- him for his keep. He may iput up at a hotel which charges lOts per day, but if he

wishes civility and attention, this amount is easily doubled before the day is over. The system is developing in some of the better class hotels in New Zealand, and is' quite common on coastal steamers and at pleasure resorts. The sooner it is nipped in the bud, the better it will be i'or all, for, at its best, it is an abomination. Perhaps in no country in the world is "tipping so ruinously expensive as in Paris. Recently a journalist ma do out a list of the day's expenses of an ordinary visitor; it showed that the lowest tips were those paid on a glass of beer and liqueur, ' wQiidh were Id each, and the highest was Is 2d paid on a theatre ticket. Roughly the amount of tips was equivalent to twenty per cent, of the day's spending. These are paid for no other reason tSian the imperative law of custom. The cheerfulness may be relative, as great things are in this world, but the giving is voluntary, and if the customers were to rise in a body against tips 110 law would restrain them. The difficultylies, however, in finding anybody witili mora J courage to affront the contemptuous sniff of the waiter or the sarcastic "Good night" of the cabman. 'Tim© afte rtime laudable efforts have been made by employers to abolish the system; aiiH the resistance has come from the tippers, and not from the tipped. An hotel"man-" ager declared that lie had tried to suppress tipping, but that visitors had persisted in tiheir generosity. The fact behind seems to have been that the .public knew the servants to be wretchedly paid,, and were eager to help them. The custom lives and the resident suffers 110 less than the traveller. The householder finds that it costs, him five per cent, on all bills. The concierge, wittily declared to be the ruler of Paris, will make his life a .misery if he is not handsomely tipped for the duties lie deigns superciliously to perform. At the end of each year householders discuss the j matter, but nothing is ever done. The explanation seems to be that those who pay the toll get value for their money in comparatively- excellent attention.'