[Illustration]
"I will show this Anglo-Jewish community that I am a man to be
reckoned with. I will crush it--not it me. Then some day it will
find out its mistake; and it will seize the hem of my coat, and
beseech me to be its Rabbi. Then, and only then, shall we have true
Judaism in London.
"The folk who compose our picture are children of the Ghetto. If
they are not the children, they are at least the grandchildren of
the Ghetto."
--"CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO."
[Illustration: THE IDLER'S CLUB
SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
"TIPPING."]
[Sidenote: Joseph Hatton on the art of tipping.]
Almost everything has been reduced to an art. You can learn journalism
outside a newspaper, playwriting by theory, French without a master. How
to succeed in literature and how not; both ways have been laid down for
the student. There is scarcely an art or a habit you cannot learn in
books. Etiquette, how to make up, stock-jobbing, acting, gardening, and
a host of intellectual pursuits, have their rules and regulations; but
the mysterious and delicate art of tipping as yet remains unexploited in
the social ethics of this much-taught generation. It is high time that
the proper method of giving tips should be defined, its laws codified,
its many possibilities of error guarded against, and some system set
forth whereby the tipper may give the greatest satisfaction to the
tipped at the most moderate, if not the least, outlay in current coin of
the realm. The art could be illustrated with many examples from the
earliest times. Pelagia's tip to Hypatia's father was the dancer's
cestus, which was jewelled with precious stones enough to stock the shop
of a Bond Street jeweller of our own time. According to the truthful
interpretation of the old English days which we find in the drama, the
most popular method of tipping was to present your gold in a long,
knitted purse, which you threw at the tippee's feet or slapped into the
palm of his hand; but this system seems to have lapsed; and no fresh
regulation has been established in the unwritten laws of the _douceur_,
which goes back even before the days when extravagant and unwilling tips
were often enforced with pincers, racks, and other imperative
inventions. Monte Cristo gave wonderful tips, and Monte Carlo is lavish
to this day. The genius that wrecked Panama has an open hand. Promoters
of London companies know how to be liberal. Not much art is required, I
believe, to distribute largess of this kind. Nor are certain classes of
American aldermen difficult to deal with. The art that should be made
most clear is how to pay your host's servants for your host's
hospitality; how to show your gratitude to a newspaper man without
hurting his _amour propre_; how to meet the requirements of the
middleman of life and labour without "giving yourself away"; how to tip
the parson when you are married; and, in this connection, one may remark
the consolation of dying; the tippee does not trouble you at your own
funeral.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: With reference to waiters, deans, and other public servants.]
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?"
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
[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._
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
[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.
* * * * *
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.