A TRIP HOME.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 7, 9 January 1886, Page 6

A TRIP HOME.

Hints to Intending Tourists.

No. s—Everyday Expenses. Daily Expenses.—Breakfast.—Dinners.— Tka — Dinnwk. — Petty Economies. — A Cprious 3/ivino.— Weekly Expenses Estimate.—Locomotion.—A system.—Taking Cabs. — Sibiit-Seeino Centbsb. — London Cabbies.— Recognising a Country Cousin. Legal Fares anl> Customary Faueb.-A dlffkrrnce. — extras. — "a gigantic AnusE."— Advantages ok the System.— AMERICAN WAITEKS.-TIIEATHE FeKS.-AN Imposition. — Active Pkotest - Unuomfoktablh Consequences. — "No Fees" Theatres.— Customary Fares.

In calculating our antipodean visitor's daily cxponsos, it will, I imagine, bo wisest to allow a full margin. Lotus, then, suppose him settled down in furnished chambers (bedroom and sitting-room, &c), costing 30s per week. His breakfast will be Is Cd per dioin, and his lunch comes to about tho same sum. Presuming ho dines out as a rule (doing a round of tho rostaurants, and neither being extravagant nor pinching), 3s Cd is a fair average sum to put down for dinner. Ono day ho may pay 2s for a chop and vegetables, with cheese, butter, salad, &c, and a pint of beer.attho Grand Hotol Grill Room ; the next run into 5s at Kettner's or the Cafe Royal. Of courso, if on strict economy bent, a substantial lunch at perhaps 2s, and a meat toa (Is fid) at home, might do. The plan is, however, an unwholesome ono, and seldom answers. As a rule, men men with a mania for small economies often than not dofeat their own object. I have known, for instance, a man in the city who was going to the theatre at night pay Is railway fare to return to his lodgings at Putney, and consume a tea costing Is 6d, rather than put down 2s for the same meal at a restaurant. Strangers to London, ignorant or forgetful of tho cost of locomotion, often make the fame mistake in far moro serious forms. Jones says, "No, I won't dine at Simpson's with you, thanks ; I'il just pop home to Russoll Square in a hansom, havo a bit o' tea, and rejoin you afterwards." Jones thinks he's exercised a moritorious piece of self-denial. When, however, he finds his two cab- fares come to 3s, and his cup of toa and friod sole is Is 6d, the reflection dawns on him that perhaps after all ho might just a3 well have dined well at Simpson's for 2s 9d. Our tourist's weokly expenses for board and lodging would then run pretty much as follows: — .. £ s a Rooms (bcSroom and sitting-room, ga3, attendance, etc.) 1 10 0 Breakfasts (eggs and meat, or fish, coffoe.eto) 10 8 Lunches 10 0 Dinners 'averagings* 6a per day. without wino or bser) 14 6 Total ' 3 15 fl We now come to the question of locomotion (or getting about). Strangers to London as a rule waste more money on cabs than on anything else. The first thing for a sight-sser who means business to do is to purchase a map. of London, and study it carefully. All the main shopping and sight-seeing thoroughfares are within a radius of about a mile and a-half from either South Kensington or Charing Cross, and it is within that radius ho will principally knock about. Let him set aside a weekly sum for trams, cabs, and omnibuses, and not exceed it, always study his route on the map before setting off to walk to any unfamiliar quarter, and never take a cab when the expense can possibly be avoided. Occasionally it becomes necessary to take a cab. Then boware of giving tho astute cabby a notion that you are a stranger. London cabbies can measure up their fares with half-an eye. To tho regular town man who knows his way and hands his Is or Is (id with quiet confidence thoy are always curt and seldom extortionate. Country cousins, on tho other hand, get constantly bounced or wheedled out of extra shillings. Oftener than not they coino to grief through being too sharp. For instance, young Juggina discovers that from Charing Cross to his lodgings is just within two miles. Well, a town man would know that though the legal fare was Is Cd, the customary one was 2s. By calling a policeman (who would be the reverse of sympathetic under the circumstances), Juggins might compel cabby to accept Is Gd, (Ha Gd would, however, bo dearly saved, for if cabby didn't take the full value of that coin out of hia fare by covering him with ridiculeandholdinghimupto passers-byas a atingy robber, he would be very unlike most Metropolitan cabbies. Curiously enough, in disputes between cabby and hia fare, the passers-by nearly always take cabby's part. I havo come to the conclusion, too, that in most downright rows cabby i 3 generally right, i.e., he merely holds out for the fare it is customary to give.

Strangers (Americans and Australians more especially) find the system of giving tipa or extras to cabbies, waiters, railway porters, &c, exceedingly perplexing and irritating, and frequently make themselves hideously uncomfortable by discountenancing it "on principle." I went about for some time with a man who did this, fighting over cab fares, ignoring waiters and railway porters, and asserting what ha called his "rights" on every possible occasion. An unpleasanter experience I can't remember. The fellow may, aa he continually explained, have been doing his be3t to help to crush "a gigantic abuse." 1 confess I suspected him simply of miserly stinginess, No doubt at first many strangers do honestly find the tip system annoying, call it an abuse, and so on. When, however, they begin to comprehend that wages are regulated with a view to tips, and that the system provides a service infinitely more willing and courteous than if wages were higher and tips abolished, complaints soon come to an end. In American hotels, where tip 3 are fow and far between (though "service" is stiffly charged for in the lulls), the black waiters . are as insolent and independent .as they can hold together. Fifty times rather would I pay a few pence extra for the assiduous attentions and promptobedienceof a European " knight of the napkin." Fees were in a fair way to be abolished at most of the London theatres a few years ago, but at Prury Lane, the Vaudeville, the Avenue, and several othor houae3 they have latterly been revived. This is an imposition for which there is no oxcuse, and which I consider it quite justifiable to protest against. Unfortunately, the passages of a theatre are not a good place for angry discussion even if one could be (or cared to bo) wroth with the natty damsels who demand 6d for a programme and 6d for looking after your hat and coat. Much may,' however, be done by clinging tenaciously to the said articles, and politely but firmly refusing a programme. True, you will have to sit on your coat all the evening (which is uncomfortable), and borrow somebody else's programme (Which looks parsimonious, not to say mean) The chances are, too, that the gentleman sitting behind will, whilst frenziedly applauding, put hiß foot through the new hat you've carefully stowed under the seat. Still, you'vo discountenanced the " harpy system," and oven if you epend an uncomfortable evening, spoil a new hat, and make yourself a nuisance to your neighbour by constantly borrowing his programme, a feeling of conscious rectitude should sustain you. At the Haymarket, St. James's, Court, Savoy, Globe, and Gaiety Theatres, attendants are liable to dismissal if discovered accepting a fee. By the way, in my remarks about cab#, I should have explained that the customary fore is usually from 3d to 6d above the legal one. For instance, any distance under f mile, la is ample, but if the distance exceeds g mile, Is 3d should be given; or, again, for any distance not exceeding a mile and a half, Is 6d is right, but for anything over that, 2a would certainly be expected.