ABOLITION OF TIPPING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3573, 24 February 1914, Page 8

ABOLITION OF TIPPING.

v’\ AN EXCURSION INTO THE . FUTURE. An amusing burlesque of the tipping custom is contributed to an English paper by a writer, who projects his mind into the future, and writing as in 1930 describes lnw tips were abolished. The hero cf the great reform, Piper by name, began by making a round of the people who usually expect Christmas boxes, and demanding Christmas boxes himself. The remainder of the episode is described as follows :

“The next week Piper preached his new gospel to his co’leagues on the floor of the Stock Exchange. In an impassioned address he outlined the policy of the mutual tip system, and bade the assembled stockbrokers go forth—north, south, east and west—to collect the back tips which were rightly due to them from all the people they had ben in the habit of tipping.

“Then and there was inaugurated the Piper League, the members of which carrnM m then coats little bmtone bearing the words, ‘Tip and be tipped, and ‘Tips all round.’

“The exact stage of the agitation was a mass meeting of super-tax payers who demonstrated their right to be tipped. The descriptive writers of the day have left us a thrilling account of the march of the 10,000 to Hyde Park, all wearing fur coats anci headed by a triumphal car, on which was posed a symbolic group representing Lord Rothschild being tipped by a newsboy.

“Then, like a bolt from the blue, came that famous speech from the Leader of the Opposition, which closed with the question, Are the people of these islands to exist by taking each other’s tips?’ “The answer came with Piper’s astounding proposal, ‘Wliy not abolish tips altogether?’ “Once more the nation ranged itself behind him. Crowds surged through the city with banners bearing the letters ‘T.M.G.’ (‘Tips Must Go’). In a feverheat of enthusiasm a band of young men smashed up tip-up seat in the Empire. An unfortunate man who was heard to say, ‘Can you give me a tip?’ was seized and summarily lynched in the Strand. It was discovered shortly afterwards that the man was merely intending to ask for a tip for the 3.30 race, and he was accorded a public funeral, Mr Piper himself sending a beautiful wreath.

“At the end of the week there was neither a tipper nor a tipee left in England, and in deference to public opinion <ho billiards cnampionfthip was played with tipless cues. The last of the tippers was Mr Gregory TurtlePunch, a 1 remarkable epicure, who sacrificed his life in an attempt to secure for himself the best cut from a joint of roast beef at the Savoy. He was denounced bv the waiter and hurled into the Thames by the outraged diners. The identical coin, England’s last tip, is preserved in the South Kensington Museum. “We of the present day, no longer under the tyranny of the tip, are sometime in danger of forgetting the work of these pioneers, but ithe death we chronicle this morning will recall to all thinking men the importance of that Boxing Day morning 1913, when Herbert James Piper followed the dustman to his home and wished him the compliments of the season.”