"TIPPING" EVILS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17241, 28 October 1927, Page 9

"TIPPING" EVILS.

AUSTRALIANS IN EUROPE.

WHEN AND HOW TO GIVE

(From a Correspondent.) LONDON, September 15

The holiday season on the Continent and at Home provides the material for an annual discussion in the British Press on the ethics of "tipping." It is in full swing. Among the comment I have read is that of the writer of the famous "Londoner's Diary" in the Evening Standard, who declares that "tipping" is an entirely novel experience to the majority of Australians visiting Europe for the first time. Oh, shades of hotel lounge bars and other places of entertainment in the great cities of Australia! "Tipping" in" Australia is certainly not the established institution that it is in Europe. Whereas in London one can with complete self-satisfaction offer twopence or threepence by way of gratuity to the girl the popular tcasbop, 1 should fear to tender the same sum in a teashop of similar type in Sydney or Melbourne.

While Australians in Europe do not find anything strange in the necessity to "tip," they are certainly confronted with difficulties in the problem of when and how to "tip." In Continental hotels everyone on the staff, however remote their connection with one's visit may be, expects to be "tipped." The unpleasantness often met with by travellers who had inadvertently forgotten someone belonging to the huge retinue led hotelkccpers, in selfdefence, to adopt a new system.

Prohibition Useless.

Even if notices were put up forbidding "tipping" the average hotel patron would ignore it. This, indeed, has • been the experience of Messrs J. Lyons and Co., Ltd., the well-known English firm of caterers, who control two or three, very large hotels in London, at which "tipping" is forbidden. In one of the hotels is an immense Palm Court. "No tipping" is the rule. That is why they call it the "palm" court, the wags declare. The addition of a fixed 10 per cent, on the bill for service leads the Continental visitor to believe that he is getting only 10 per cent, of service. At the majority of these "no tipping—--10 per cent, hotels" most of the servants look for and expect a substantial pourboire. And when none is given "there is sometimes a suspicion of veiled insolence in the manner of "speeding the parting guest." In Paris it is alleged by the staffs that certain hotelkeepers retain a part of the impost to assist them in covering general expenses. A proposal is now being made to abolish the 10 per cent, for service in favour of 5 per cent., this to include everyone except the chambermaid, the valet, and the waiter at table, whose services are essentially Apart from the hotels on the Continent 10 per cent, on the value of the bill is the recognised "tip" for service in restaurants and elsewhere. Woe, indeed, lo the traveller was omits to give, the Parisian taxi-driver a pourboire of 10 per cent. He considers it almost as part of his legal fare, and will follow the tourist into his hotel and create a terrible fuss until he gets it. Personally, on the Continent, I give a little more than 10 per cent, in all cases. The French and Italians are so obsessed with the advantages derived by English travellers owing to lite depreciated value of the franc and the lira that they expect more. They believe quite sincerely that they should get it. And it saves a great deal of bother and argument to give it to them. But it should be only a small percentage above ten.