Hotel Fees.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 4193, 24 November 1883, Page 9 (Supplement)

Hotel Fees.

Writing on the vexations exaction of "tips" by hotol attendants, the "Daily Tolegraph" says: When, in Bacon's worldly-wise romance of "The New Atlantis," the travellers offer twenty pistoles to the chamberlain of the Strangers Houso, the official only smiled and said, "What? twice paid I" The complaint of the public against hotel servants ia that they are twice paid. There is the fixed charge per day for attendance, which charge belongs of equitable right to the servants and not to their employers. With respect to this irritating charge for attendance, it is but fair to the hotel-keepers to point out that originally this impost was nono of their making. So much a-day for "service" had for a lengthened period been charged in Continental hotels, when about the year 1554 the lato Mr Albert Smith published a pamphlet in which he vehemently denounced what he held to be the extortion of the waiters. boots, and chambermaids at the provincial hotels. Albert Smith's pamphlet led to a general discussion on the subject in the press, the result of which was a tolerably unanimous expression of public opinion that optional gratuities should be abolished, and that the fixed attendance charge should take their place. The change, hailed as a boon at the outset, was in a very short time found to be an aggravation of hotel exactions, for hotel servants still continued to expect bakshish, and the existing and intolerable system of twice paid came into full operation. It was noi the fault of the hotel-keepers, but of the public, that the double tax grew up, and that tho latter unwittingly consented to be scourged with scorpions instead of whips. As things stand at present it shows us that the public hare very much the remedy for the grievance in their own hands. That remedy is of a dual nature. Let them either refuse to patronise hotels in which a fifed charge is made for attendance unless it is distinctly notified that no other fees are expected, and that any servant accepting a fee will be at once dismissed ; or let them resolutely adopt the rule of giving no bakshish under any circumstances, and see whether the innkeepers vrho_ charge for attendance will find it to their interest to retain uncivil or inattentive servants in < their establishments.