HOW THE BOOKS HELP
"The Cyclopædia of Social Usage" states the tipping obligation as follows:
"In a large and fashionable hotel generous and widely diffused gratuities are expected by the employees. The experienced traveler usually distributes in gratuities a sum equal to ten per cent. of the amount of the bill. It is customary when a lengthy sojourn is made in an hotel or pension to tip the chambermaid, the various waiters and the porter who does one's boots, once in every week. Once in every fortnight the head waiter's expectations should be satisfied, and where an elevator boy and doorman are on duty, they, too, have claims on the purse of the guest.
"In a fashionable European hotel the rule of tipping a franc a week all around may safely be observed during a long stop. But at the hour of departure something extra must be added to the weekly franc, and the head waiter will scarcely smile as blandly as need be if he is not propitiated with gold."
Others, the writer says, have claims that it is well to recognize and meet before they urge them.
Practically all the books on etiquette have the same note of subserviency to the custom. The point to be remembered is that, without being conscious of it, these writers are in league with the beneficiaries of the custom to perpetuate and extend it. Most of the authors think the custom is right, they have the aristocratic viewpoint that servants should "know their place" and, in a republic, be made to acknowledge it by accepting a gratuity. Others simply take conditions as they find them and write to inform readers how to avoid unpleasant incidents. But regardless of the opinion of the writers on the ethics of the custom, the books are one of the principal supports of the custom.
Leaving the hotel, and considering the tipping custom in its relation to private hospitality, we find this advice in "Dame Curtesy's Book of Etiquette":
"It is customary to give servants a tip when one remains several days under a friend's roof. The sum cannot be stated but common sense will settle the question."
IN PRIVATE HOUSES
The theory of tipping to servants in private homes where one may be a guest is based on the assumption that one's presence gives the servants extra work and they should be compensated therefor. The extra work undoubtedly is involved, but in a really true conception of hospitality, should not the servants enter into it as much as the hosts? Or, if the guest entails extra work should not the host's conception of hospitality cause him or her to supply the extra compensation? The guest who tips servants in a private home implies that the host or hostess has not adequately compensated them for their labor.
The tips under such circumstances are a reflection upon the hospitality of the home. A host should ascertain if servants consider themselves outside the feeling of hospitality and pay them for the extra work, thus giving the guest complete hospitality. It is bad enough to tip in a hotel, for professional hospitality; to tip in a private home is, or should be, an insult to the host.