Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1883 — THE TIP NUISANCE. [ARTICLE]

THE TIP NUISANCE.

4n Imported Evil which la Spreading In New York [From the New York World.] The tip tax is a formidable figure in daily expenses and annoyances in this city. That must be paid, though rent and doctor’s bills languish. If it isn’t paid promptly, and with'an appearance of cheerful acquiescence, you can’t move on. It is an English importation which' has grown to overpowering .proportions. . When you tip a waiter you don’t pay him for what he has done for you. The man who employs him does that. You give him a coin as th& tribute exacted by inferiority of its betters. It is the tariff levied upon superior position. In some ill-defined way it is supposed to confer honor on the giver, and in an unmistakable way it degrades the receiver. That feature of the transaction, however, disturbs not the waiter. He wants his tip and will have it, regardless of ultimate results. And he knows exactly how to get it, too. He contrives to make the guest understand that he expects it; that it is a part of the programme, which, if omitted, would leave him, the guest, no selfrespect at all. Mr. Yellowplush does all this without swerving a hair’s breadth from the strictest outward decorum. He says nothing on the subject, of course. He simply makes his face, hin manher, his attitudes and his voice convey his wishes. There is no mistaking the significance of the language he employs. The strongest man becomes helpless under this treatment, and yields in spite of a thousand resolutions to discourage this whole exasperating business.

The circle addicted to levying tips is constantly increasing. Porters, tablewaiters, messengers, baggage-wheelers, janitors and all orders of servitors who are without pride belong to the tip-re-ceiving fraternity; but the table-waiter leads off. He is the most skilled tipgetter. He can reduce the most obdurate to subjection. Only those who never expect to return to the diningroom over which he presides escape him. Even the female has picked up a little of the art of tip-compelling. She serves in bakeries, dairies and less pretentious places than does the grandiose creature who poses in swell dining-rooms and is more reasonable in her demands, but she is not to be put off. If the nimble quarter is not forthcoming with reasonable prompitude she grows cold as to expression and insufferable as to manner. You feel as uncomfortable as a Russian monarch expecting a Nihilist’s dagger. After the placatory coin reaches her she smiles and grows as genial as a Florida garden. If it was only when we eat that this tax is levied one might refrain from growling,however inconvenient the custom; but the open palm of the tipreceiver is stretched toward you on all occasions. You go to the depot to get some baggage checked. The strongarmed man in a blue blouse-, whose duty it is to hunt it up for you, departs with such alacrity and returns with such cheerfulness, bringing the baggage, that you are lost in admiration of the beauty of a large and well-systematized force of officials. Here, you think, are employes who actually serve the public as though it were a pleasure. Suddenly ! you glance at the accommodating baggageman’s face, and, although it is composed and polite, you understand the unspoken mandate. If it takes your last piece of silver, the tip must be paid. You feel that, in spite of all law, if you don’t yield the man will then and there take a hammer and beat your trunk and its contents all to pieces. You are overawed in the same way by the porter who carries your three-pound sachel up-stairs. He may set it down with all deference to your wishes and comfort, and appear not to be hurrying you up about the change, but if you let the door close upon him without having crossed his palm with silver you are lost, as far as comfort is concerned. The parting glance of his eye tells you that. Everywhere in the metropolis the tip must be paid. It is even more obligatory than the grocer’s bill. Many conscienceless people do succeed in evading the grocer and outgenerating the butcher, but no one escapes the tipleviefs of New York. One of the waiter’s ways of making it impossible to avoid paying him his expected tribute money is to contrive to have a few small silver pieces under the bills on the platform which he carries back to change. The cashier lends a hand in this arrangement. The silver pieces are placed in a row on t*ie waiter’s side, inclining toward him like a leaning tower. The man doesn’t live who dares to pick these poor little fractions up piece by piece and pocket them in the presence of the expectant waiter. That functionary bows a servile acknowledgment as he gathers them to himself, which, literally translated, means, “It’s well you took the hint, otherwise you would have regretted it.”