TIPS WORTH WHILE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19462, 23 November 1925, Page 10

TIPS WORTH WHILE

SERVANTS MAKE FORTUNES. • ON ADVICE GIVEN BY PASSENGERS. There recently died in England an ' hotel “boots” who loft £BOOO to bo divided among his fellow workers. Of the money, he saved practically nothing out of wages, but all from tips given him by hotel guests. That man is only one of many who left their for- 1 tunes they gathered either by way of cash tips, or by acting upon advice given them. And when the position is summed up the shillings or two, or oven . pounds, which a steward of a steamer might receive at the end of a voyage from passengers, cannot be so valuable as the financial hint people “in the know” sometimes give. In England and on the Continent and on practically all steamship services the j world over, tips are regarded by ser- • vants as even better than wages, but to I come nearer home, we in New Zealand j have kept this tipping craze within j reasonable limits. Go to a picture show. an<l it will be noticed that all travellers! tip railway servants, waiters in res- j taurants are tipped; in fact, everyone ’ appears to receive a tip for any little! consideration. In N- w Zealand a railway servant not employed on the Main ' Trunk, who was rewarded with a shil- , ling, would probably bite it with his ! teeth and take a risk of blood poisoning. The waitresses in the dining rooms in the city would receive a shock if they found anything but crumbs of I food under the plates, and it is questionable whether they wouhl appreci- : ate such free tipping as prevails di ■ other countries. Certain it is. says the: “Star,’’ that no Auckland waitresses i or railway servants will die leaving a fortune save out of tips. Still there is a deal of tipping done even in New Zealand, and the practice

lis common on steamers. Passengers ; ■ believe, rightly or wrongly, that unless I they tip the stewards they will receive! | little or no consideration on the boat, i The stewards themselves candidly ad- : mit that there is no necessity for any i passenger to give them a tip, but api patently the passengers think other- ' wise and very few people travel on steamers nowadays without providing themselves with a little silver to distribute on hoard. A steward on an ocean liner died some time back in j . England and left over £20,000, but [ , much of the money was the result of* speculation made on advice given him j by big men of the financial world who periodically travelled on the ship. It is quite common for people who arc • continually in (lose touch with the travelling public in England to accumulate big sums of money, but none are so well placed as officers and stew ■r Is of big liners. To a steward who perhaps will look after seven or eignt table.-, a tip of £lO at the end of a few I days’ voyage is not uncommon.