THE UNIVERSAL DEMAND.
It runs through everything. I will not say that the Queen herself divides with her servants the tips they receive, for I do not know. I will not make statements rashly. But I presume she does. I do not see how so important a source of revenue should escape her notice, or be neglected. I shall not offer her sixpence when I inspect any of her palaces, nor do I say she would take it from me. But so firmly fixed is the infernal system, so much is it a part of English life, that I verily believe it would wrench the amiable old lady’s heart not to take it, and I also believe that she would so manage that I should not get away with it in my possession.
Oh! my countrymen! It is my duty to warn you against a great impending danger. The system of tipping is, gradually but surely, getting its rapacious fingers upon your vitals. It has its clammy grasp upon your sleeping cars; it is gradually working into hotels, and everywhere else. Strangle the monster in its infancy. Declare war upon it at once, and fight it to the death. Refuse to pay the sleeping car porter for what you have already paid the corporation of which he is an excrescence. Refuse sternly to fee the servant at a hotel, the porter who handles your trunk, and the man who waits on you at table. When he says to you, “My wages are small, and I must have fees,” say to him, kindly but firmly, “Either make the proprietor pay you proper wages or quit his employ. If you cannot plow or hammer stone, go out quietly and die for the good of the many. It is not necessary that you should wear a swallow-tailed coat, and make more for trivial services than the average mechanic does for a hard day’s work. We will none of it.”
And so shall you rid yourself of the most infernal nuisance that afflicts England, the one petty worriment that makes the life of the tourist unhappy. We can endure a giant monopoly, but these small tyrannies are unbearable.
