TIPS IN PARIS.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11553, 14 February 1906, Page 4

TIPS IN PARIS.

Paris" bas a New Year terror, about which the correspondent of the "Standard" writes in amusing fashion "* Once, "4 when France was governed by men cut off abuses as well as heads, tips were forbidden by law. On going into Paris on'the j morning of the 26th of December! this .unfortunate Englishman was stared at so significantly by the conductor that he parted witb his nhange. The ticket collector at the railway station was resisted — apparently because he was in the habit of shutting the gate in the face of the correspondent, and preventing him catchingihis train— but the cabman caughc the foreigner in a weaker moment. At lunch time the writer was told that two postmen had called, and would call again, wh'cb they did. Now, in Paris, each letter costs three half-pence, and a resident never sees a postman from one year's end to another, the letters being given to the concierge, who, in the correspondent's case, opens them if his curiosity in strong enough, but tbe postmen come for their tip as a matter of course. The postmen were followed "by every tradesman's employee who has ever brought any dearly-bought thing to the houseby the gas men and the electric light men, whom I suspect of playing tricks with the meters, and finally by the concierge." The concierpe is the last straw. He has no family, nor any rich relatives. "On the contrary. I know that he makes mischief amongst my servants; tells lies about me ; spies on me. It hurts me to give to the concierge^. It seems like hush money to a blackmailer; v bribe to a gaoler. I have often wondered what would happen if I refused to give to any of them, the concierge included. I have asked Frenchmen many times, but they either hold up their hands in horror, or shrug their shoulders, and hint vaguely at some terrible fate.