TIPS AND TIPPERS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue XLVII, 12 March 1912, Page 6

TIPS AND TIPPERS.

THE TOLL OF TRAVEL. Every now and then there is an outcry I against the burden of th e tipping system -which. «xists in Britain and European countries, but the appea'ls of travellers upon whom porters and waiters and stewards levy heavy toll seem to be quite ineffective. The system certainly has lost none of its vitality in recent years, and probably the ramifications of its tyranny have 'bten "extended. A story of an indignant American visitohas been told recently in London to illustrate the prevalence of the evil. Ad he stood 011 the deck of a departing steamer at Liverpool he shouted to the crowd on the wharf : "If there is a man, woman or t'hild in this country whom I have forgotten to tip, now is -the twne t° speak, before I get out. of reach." Many visitors to the Old Country probably spend a great deal more in tifJs than they are expected to do. 'A correspondent of the Sydney "Darily Telegraph" states that "the Ibasis of the tipping system in England is 2d," but Id is the proper tip for the dirty urchin or uukept man who never misses an opportunity to open the door of a calb for a waiting "fare." In tile West End of London the newsboys make a practice of retaining the change when a penny is proffered for a half-penny newspaper, but. the correspondent remarks that the lhalf-penny cannot be regarded as a tip. The newsboy knows that "no gentleman would willingly carry a, smaller coin than a penny, and his appropriation of the half-penny is merely, his expression ol sympathy wifh gentlemanly prejudices. Tlie man who essays to carry his own bag in London- is an object of public curiosity. The correspondent teils of an Australian wbo had 'to go from a fashionable hotel in London to a railway station one hundred yards away. Resolutely refusing the portor's offer to call a cab, he set out for the station with a small tag in hs hand. He was no sooner outsde the door than every street loafer offered to carry his bag, and a numlber of tQicm followed him so closely that lie became an object of interest to passers-by. Before he had gone 20 yards he -was g3ad to take refuge in a friendlv taxi-cab.