Chapter 8

The waiter at public dinners is a very considerate person. He assists you in every possible way he can. With every dish he practically jogs your memory; and, as an accompaniment to the dessert, he informs you that he "must now leave"; is there "anything else he can do for you?" If you are of a reflective nature you may, in a moment of abstraction, rise from your seat and shake hands with him; but if, as a right-minded citizen, you have constantly in view the universal claim upon your purse, you will thank your friendly and condescending attendant, and pay him for the services he has rendered to his employer. You may in your thoughtlessness and abstraction have jeopardised the success of the waiter's arrangements for carrying off a certain bottle of wine which he had planted for convenient removal. How much you should give him is considered to depend upon the quality of the wine which you have been fully charged for with your ticket; and this question of cuisine and wine still further complicates the difficult adjustment of the rightful claims of the attendant and what is due to your own honour, not to mention your reputation as a _gourmet_. An irreverent American, after a first experience, I conclude, of English travel, said that you are safe in tipping any Britisher below the dignity of a bishop; but a fellow-countryman, guided by this opinion, felt very unhappy when, after being shown over a famous cathedral by the dean, he slipped half-a-sovereign into his very reverend guide's hand, and received, in return, an intimation that the poor's box was in the porch. I remember on one occasion, when I was investigating a question that called for special courtesy on the part of a public official, I was disturbed during my work with the question whether I might tip him, and, if so, to what extent. The subject almost "got on my nerves" before the inquiry, which lasted an hour or two, came to an end; at last I determined that it was a case for a tip. I gave him ten shillings. For a moment I thought I had offended him, and, remembering the dean and the poor box, was about to say, "Give it to a charity," when the official plaintively inquired if I couldn't "make it a sovereign?"

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[Sidenote: He discourses concerning the ethics of tipping.]

Give up the idea that tipping will succumb to any agitation. So long as commodities have to be paid for in cash, and not in fine words and sweet smiles, tipping will exist. The moralist may rave against it, but ask him in what way his gratitude manifests itself when a railway porter politely relieves him of half-a-dozen bags, and deposits them in a snug corner, whilst he has barely time to take his ticket at the booking-office. It is surely impossible to abuse the same porter if, out of a feeling of recognition for favours previously received, he leaves the belated passenger to manage the best way he can under a cartload of shawls, rugs, hat and bonnet-boxes, to attend again to your comforts. You hardly sympathise with your fellow-traveller, although he may be using very strong language against the identical porter, in whose favour, for the second time, you part with a few coppers. It is the desire to secure the comforts and commodities provided by the activity of others that will perpetuate tipping. After all, this is not limited to menials. It is given, and unscrupulously accepted by all grades of society, and by all conditions of men. I have known a company director give to a titled nobody a berth promised to someone else, because he had been familiarly addressed by His Lordship in a public place, and had been "honoured" by a few minutes' conversation. That was not, of course, a tip in the ordinary sense of the word, but it amounted, however, to the same thing. It secured a good berth to his "Excellency." And what say you of the whiskies and waters, brandies and sodas, the champagne, oysters, luncheons, and dinners to which our good city men generously ask a would-be customer? That, I suppose, is called "paving the way to a good business." I have not unfrequently heard people regret that they were unable to refuse a favour in return for a civility. That civility was most likely a dinner, or even something less. Kisses distributed by ladies in hotly-contested constituencies, the promise of a Government post, an invitation to a party, a mere familiar recognition, a penny, are all varieties which make the thing so general.

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[Sidenote: He believes the custom will die out with human nature.]

Wedding presents are not given without an _arriere pensee_, and at Christmas our object is mostly to please the parents. Our indignation, however, is not roused by this, because we are in the habit, I suppose, of distributing and receiving such acknowledgments ourselves. We want to suppress small tips; in fact, such as are most wanted by the recipient, whose only source of revenue they constitute in many cases. We fail to realise that, were servants well paid, "tipping" would not take the form of an imposition. Employers, especially at hotels and restaurants, either give ridiculously low wages, or suppress these altogether, and in many establishments hire the tables to the waiters at so much a day or week for the privilege of serving. At present this custom has become so deeply rooted that it has given growth to a most perfect secret code of signs and marks by which each class of servants is informed how much he has to expect from the liberality of the inexperienced and unwary stranger. This applies especially to hotel servants, and has become the crying abuse against which we try to react. This code is not local, but has acquired an internationality which professors of Volapuk would be proud to claim for their language. I remember once an irascible old gentleman complaining bitterly against the incivility of the hotel servants, who never helped him with his traps. He found no exception to the rule except when his wanderings took him to some remote part of Scotland, where, he assured me, the "_braying of the socialist pedants had not yet been heard_." I suspected that my friend was not over-generous, and timidly sounded him on the point. His reply confirmed my suspicion. I thereupon showed him the cause of the servants' inattention, amounting sometimes even to rudeness--a _little chalk mark on each bag_. I advised him to carefully wipe that off after leaving the hotels. The effect was most satisfactory--my friend has had no reason to complain since, at least when he got into a hotel. The position of hotel labels also serves to indicate if anything can be expected from the traveller. Of course, this is not countenanced by "mine host," who dismisses the user of such messages, but as that man is generally a wide-awake and useful rogue, there is little doubt but that he is reinstated in his functions shortly after the traveller is gone. Beggars and tramps have a similar system of conveying to their _confreres_ information as to the likely reception they may expect from the occupants of the different residences on the road. They never fail to warn them against dogs and other disagreeable surprise or dangers, should they by some unaccountable absent-mindedness forget that there is such a thing as the eighth commandment. In conclusion, _pourboire_, _buona mancia_, _backshish_, tipping or bribery, was born with man, and will only die out with him.

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[Sidenote: Giuseppe of the Cafe Doney, at Florence: his experience.]

Ah! Milor, what do I think of "teeping?" What would become of me without it? In some forty or fifty years I shall be a rich man, and perhaps keep a _cafe_ myself, thanks to the benevolence and generosity of the American and English milors. At first I was a cabman, but in Italy no one gives the cabman a _pourboire_; so my friends said, "Ah! Giuseppe, you must make money somehow. Become a waiter, and you will grow rich." So they took me to our padrone, and he made me a waiter, and I am growing rich on "teeps." But it is not my own compatriots, Milor, who make me rich. When I attend one of them, he will only give me ten centimes (a penny), and if I attend two of them they will give me fifteen centimes between them. But the English and Americans will sometimes give me fifty or a hundred centimes at a time. But, alas! that happens very seldom. When I am in luck I save two hundred centimes a day (1s. 8d.), and shall, in a great many years, have a _cafe_ of my own. Perhaps Milor will assist? _Grazie._

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[Sidenote: The head waiter at the ---- sets forth his views.]

Instead of complaining against tipping, the public should oblige the employers to pay their servants more liberally. In modern restaurants--and I suppose the custom has come from Paris--waiters have to pay the employers sums varying from one to four shillings a day according to the number and position of tables they serve. Their work averages from fourteen to sixteen hours a day. It begins at eight, and sometimes long after midnight they are still at work. Out of their earnings they have to pay all breakages and washing, and, for the thirty to thirty-five shillings they earn a week, they have to put up, from a class of customers, with patience and a perpetual smile, more abuse than one in any other ten men would stand. It not unfrequently happens that a waiter would do without it rather than accept a tip which assumes the form of an insult. We look upon it as a remuneration due to us, and, after trying to satisfy the client, we do not see why he should think it an unbearable nuisance, and treat the recipient with contempt. In many cases, after exacting the most constant attention, and heaping unmerited abuse on the irresponsible waiter, the client who has most likely spent on himself enough to keep a family a whole week, grudges the sixpence he has to give the attendant, and makes him feel it by throwing the coppers down, accompanying the action by an insulting remark. Like all men whose business it is to minister to the comfort of others, many among us are very shrewd observers, and can tell at a glance what treatment we may expect from certain customers, and we behave accordingly. We are seldom mistaken in our judgment. Experience has taught us that the most generous, and at the same time most gentlemanly, "tippers" are the Israelitish Anglo-German financiers. There is a difference between them and the young spendthrift who inconsiderately throws away his money. No, sir, the Anglo-German banker, orders, goes carefully through the account, and then gives his money liberally. After him comes the Russian. The Englishman, who is next best, is closely followed by the French and German.

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[Sidenote: His opinion of Americans as tippers.]

The American is nowhere. It is a mistaken idea to believe that he is generous. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but the majority of them come out here just to see the sights, and talk about them on their return. A certain sum is laid aside for the purpose, and I am sure they contrive to make economies upon it. The Americans are, besides, disagreeable to serve. They never lose the opportunity of making disparaging comparisons between their country and the old world. Our restaurants are country inns compared to theirs, their waiters are smarter, their services of better class, our cooking is miles behind theirs, and as to concoction of drinks, of course we have to take a back seat. We are also very slow. A steak, in Chicago, for instance, is cooked in about the fifteenth of the time required here. When it comes to paying, the American finds that everything is also dearer over here; gives very little or nothing to _that inattentive waiter_, threatens to lodge a complaint against him, and goes away satisfied that everyone is impressed by the grandeur of the Great Republic as represented by himself, one of its worthy citizens.

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[Sidenote: Of Scotchmen and millionaires.]

In England, the Scotch are the least liberal. In Scotland, waiters and hotel servants are paid. An attempt to introduce in Edinburgh the continental system failed most ignominiously in 1886, and the enterprising _restaurateur_ had to revert to the local system, and replace all the former waiters, who ran back to London rather than be reduced to the dire necessity of going into the workhouse. Young men, as a rule, are more generous than elderly people, and the fair sex is, in general, very stingy. A gentleman accompanied by a lady, if she is only an acquaintance, is sure to tip generously, _pour la galerie_, although he may look as if he wanted to accompany every penny by a kick. But when the same person dines with his wife or sister, the remuneration is as small as decency can permit. When a waiter spots such a relation between a party of diners, he generally tries to escape the obligation of offering them a table. At the large restaurants we gauge the diners' liberality very frequently at one glance, and in any case form an accurate opinion of him by the way he orders his _menu_. We know whether we have to do with a gentleman or a cad, and whether his subsequent parsimoniousness is caused by cussedness or simply ignorance of the customs of such establishments, and we treat him in consequence. It is pitiful sometimes to see all the ruses employed by well-meaning people, unwilling to be thought unaccustomed to the life of a large restaurant, and my advice to such persons would be to remain natural rather than become ridiculous. The manner in which the tip is given varies according to the nationality and character of the donor. The most ostentatious among these is the South American millionaire, whose gift varies according to the number of people present. As a rule, the wealthy man is not generous.

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[Sidenote: A commissionnaire can tell people's dispositions at sight.]

I can say at first sight whether a person is of a kindly disposition, for I would rather assist such a person and get nothing than one who makes me feel the weight of his liberality. The amount a man may make depends a great deal on his wits. To forestall a gentleman's wishes, give him the necessary information, and to the point; to assist him when assistance is most needed, and not before, is what is most appreciated. When in a theatre I see a couple occupying a bad seat, when better ones are vacant, I make the suggestion, and would certainly be astonished if the gentleman did not acknowledge the hint. When the working classes do not syndicate they have to accept wages so ridiculously low that they are obliged to find some means of increasing their earnings. But will it ever be possible to suppress the "evil"? Allow me to doubt it. The thing is, therefore, to prevent tipping taking the form of an imposition. This can only be done by paying good wages.

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[Sidenote: Barr gives the straight tip.]

A native of Cuba once said to me, with an air of proud superiority, "We have the yellow fever _always_ in Havana." I was unable to make any such boastful claim for North America, and so the Cuban rightly thought he had the advantage of me. They think nothing of the yellow fever in Havana, but when the malady is imported into Florida the people of that peninsula become panic-stricken. The yellow fever in the Southern States strikes terror. It seems to be worse in its effects when it enters the States than it is where they always have it. So it is with tipping. It is always present in Europe in a mild form, but periodically tipping swoops down upon the United States, and its effects are dreadful to contemplate. If tipping ever becomes epidemic in America, the unfortunate citizens will have to leave, and seek a cheaper country, for the haughty waiter in an American hotel scorns the humbler coins of the realm, and accepts nothing less than half a dollar. Happily, tipping has, up to date, been more or less of an exotic in America, but I have grave fears that the Chicago Exhibition, attracting as it does so many incurable tippers from Europe, will cause the disease to take firm root in the States, and entail years of suffering hereafter.

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[Sidenote: Summing up.]

I do not agree with the member of the club who holds in one paragraph that Scotsmen are mean in the giving of tips. Speaking as a Scotsman myself, I admit that we like to go the whole distance from Liverpool Street to Charing Cross for our penny. We desire to get the worth of our bawbee. And it is a cold day when we don't. But it must be remembered that a Scotsman is conscientious, and he knows that tipping is an indefensible vice, so he discourages it as much as possible, being compelled by custom to fall in with it. Then, again, the man who claims that Americans are not liberal doesn't know what he is talking about. The trouble with the American is that he does not know the exact amount to give, and that bothers him, and causes him to curse the custom in choice and varied language. Speaking now as an American, I will give a tip right here. If Conan Doyle, or George Meredith, or some author in whom Americans have confidence, would get out a book entitled, say, "The Right Tip, or Tuppence on the Shilling," giving exactly the correct sum to pay on all occasions, Americans would buy up the whole edition and bless the author. I think Americans are altogether too lavish with their tips, and thus make it difficult for us poorer people, whom nobody tips, to get along. A friend of mine, on leaving one of the big London hotels, changed several five pound notes into half-crowns, and distributed these coins right and left all the way from his rooms to the carriage, giving one or more to every person who looked as if he would accept. He met no refusals, and departed amidst much _eclat_. He thought he had done the square thing, as he expressed it, but I looked on the action as corrupting and indefensible. He deserves to have his name blazoned here as a warning, but I shall not mention it, merely contenting myself by saying that he was formerly a United States senator, was at that time Minister to Spain, and is at the present moment President of the World's Fair.

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The portrait of Mrs. Henniker, which appeared in _The Idler_ for May--"LIONS IN THEIR DENS": V. THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE--was from a photograph taken by Messrs. WERNER AND SON, OF DUBLIN.