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THE CRIME OF THE OUTSTRETCHED PALM HJZ7?i4 KNOX Leaps Upon the Tipping Outrage. Rends It Limb from Limb, Emitting Harsh Growls of 'Rage •\u25a0^/H^/fif \u25a0\u25a0 Ezra Knox IN days of ofd, when knights returned from holy and unholy war, hoi polloi would stand' along the line of march and . shout "Largesse! Lar gesse!" And the knights, swelled with pride and round shouldered from lugging their loot, would throw out a little cash .to the people. In the essen- r tial thing, the getting of the money, the conditions exist today. The people do not etand on the side lines and they do not plead for largesse; they de mand it now. and they get it, but they call it tips. It was in the distribution of largesse that the tipping system had its inception, and no one can say where it will stop. "The sign of the outstretched palm" is seen on every side, and so insistent are the demands, either actual or implied, that the tax im posed on the average person by reason of this sys tem, which is alike undefended and undefendable, is nothing less than appalling. , . It is not a tax, it is a holdup. . Perhaps that term should not be applied to the process of tipping a waiter who has served a meal. There is a semijudi cial decree upholding this expenditure. The corpora tion counsel of New York, in what one of his prede cessors called a "cigar store opinion," has said the payment of a tip to a waiter is now as usual as the payment of the bill itself, and that the supreme court must have concluded, in making an allowance for ex penses to employes of the city, that the tip became a part of the cost of the dinner. Tips may be divided into two classes — those that are scmikgitimatc and those that are of the common garden variety of blackmail. While there is no good reason why you should pay the proprietor of a res taurant for the food you eat and then pay his servant for serving it to you, yet there is a service rendered. That is a good deal more than can be said for some of the things for which tips are demanded. Go to any of the bitter class of-restaurants in San Francisco and you can sec the tipping system in many of its phases. Before you can enter the dining room you are compelled to leave your hat and coat with a boy at the door, and before you get them back you arc expected to give a tip. The boy at the door is one of the choicest nuisances. If you should chance to get by him with your hat in your hand, thinking, perhaps, that you can place it in an empty chair, he is after you. like a Nemesis, and will look at you as if you were guilty of a high crime and ought to be ashamed for even trying to associate with de cent people. It is not absolutely necessary that you give money to that boy; you will get your hat and coat back if you do not. But if you expect to go back there again it might be just as well to hand something to him. The worst that you can get if you do not tip him is a sneer and a muttered "cheap skate," but if you re turn there he will remember your face, and he will take his own time before he finds your hat, and will take the checks from just as many other persons as he possibly can before he reaches for yours. That is the way he gives an object lesson in the advantage of distributing largesse. ~ \ $2.50 FOR ONE DRINK You might want to wash your hands before sitting down to dinner. In the washroom you will find a boy who looks enough like the one at the checkroom to be his twin, and they are more than brothers when it comes to demanding tips. He will have a towel about twice the size of a postage stamp ready for you, and he expects you will. have a dime ready for him. With an enthusiasm that in a worthier cause would be com mendable he will grab a whisk broom and will wear out a couplo of dollars' worth of clothing in trying to lrnpfess upon you that he should get the money. Now you do not have to give money to this boy; but if you arc going to the same place day after day, of week after week, you will find that it will add to your comfort to respond to "the sign of the 'outstretched palm" and stand for the holdup. The Broadway folks used to say of one restaurant famed for the elegance of the furnishings, and which has since closed its doors, that it required an expeiir diture of $2.50 to get a drink of whisky. Of this amount $2 went for the rental of evening clothes^ for they were necessary there'; then the boy who took the hat and, coat had to have at least 15 cents, the waiter had to have 15 cents more, and the whisky cost 20 cents. One naturally would think that in high priced res taurants, where a single meal will S£t a person back for a considerable amount, the proprietors would try •to protect their customers from the annoyance of these holdups. They will say they don't ask the peo ple to pay these tips, but they do ask just the same. The revenue from the checkroom of a restaurant is figured on as much as the profit from the bar, and every restauran^man counts it as one of his assets. He starts the holdup game by selling the privilege of checking the hats; and the boys have to be the kind :':: ' : - \u25a0.:'. -:'''''\u25a0%> '.'\u25a0< \u25a0 " \u25a0 ;'_ \u25a0\u25a0"\u25a0-- • \u25a0 A Little Detail Like" Having r the Tele phone Ring Djiring the Nteht i that can wheedle money or they don't stay in the If you are a regular customer at a place, spending quite a lot of money every we«k or monthj, arid you make a complaint against one of these boys for* being impudent the proprietor probably will see that he is discharged. That does not help. The next boy may be worse. The trouble is that the system is greater than any proprietor who tries to regulate it, and for financial reasons no one of them wants to -abolish it. After you have had dinner and paid tribute to the waiter, head waiter, checkroom boy, washroom boy and a few others, including the person! who has the flower privilege— cither paid tribute or been; annoyed and probably humiliated— you decide to ride home ; in a taxicab. The hotel or restaurant man has sold the exclusive privilege of occupying the street in front of the place. He does not own the street, and so far as the honesty 'of the transaction is concerned he might just as well sell three acres of blue sky; he has just as much right to that as he has to the 'street,' but "by the complaisance of the city authorities he is per muted to establish and* maintain a monopoly. . At each of these places you /will find a. taxicab starter. If you are a regular customer of; the service and do not respond to his appeal when he makes "the "sign of the outstretched palm,", and; make that re sponse about oncein so often, you will; get a service, that. will inculcate in you the love for walking. If it is a rainy night you will find that every taxicab is \u25a0 . - ' \u25a0 \u25a0 - '. -\u25a0:-: -\u25a0\u25a0-\u25a0 -\u25a0\u25a0•\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0 "-:. engaged, arid a stranger with the potential possibility,; •of a tip will get, a .machine when you are riot- able ta On: the other' hand, if you have slipped; the starter something, from' time totime; in other words, if you have stood' for the holdup, you will get the best scry Hoi Polloi Would Stand Along the^Line of March and Shout "Lareess $. Largess $*; ice possible, and the nontipper'arid the stranger will The next one of this gentle band to deal with is the chauffeur. The taximeter records the* amount the company will get for the ride, and no one ever has. made the complaint that it is too little, but for some unexplained reason the driver has to be taken care of. Why he should receive a tip any more than the mo torman" of a streetcar is one of the things of life. You can ride the first time withoat paying a tip, but woe be unto you if you ever get the same chauffeur again. The things he can do to dis-., turb your peace of mind are almost without number, and if you are in a hurry to get to a certain train and confide this to him he will see that you get the next FOR A TIP TRUST " •" Now comes the report that the hotel and restaurant men are going to take a little tip for themselves. It may be that they; are .envious of the waiters and, the checkroom boy. The new plan is to collect the "cou vert" toll, a custom in vogue in Europe, by which you are charged for the use of the * knife and fork, the bread and butter, the sugar in your.coffee. coffee and the oil and* vinegar for the salad. In other words, you may be called upon- to pay a tax for sitting at a restaurant table. It that goes good it is not at all unlikely there will be a charge for the ice in the champagne bucket! * - You do not have to dine in restaurants or, ride in taxicabs to be a victim of this system. "The sign of the outstretched palm" is in evidence at every apart ment house. The holdup is not alone by the much maligned janitor, for he .usually does something for which he receives a tip, but there is that cheerful lit tle pirate, the hall boy, who can think of imore. than 20 ways to make life for you a howling wilderness of woe if the tips do-not come regularly and are not of sufficient size. Have you ever observed the way a new boy sizes up the tenants of an apartment house, . orian;old boy takes themeasure of the new ones and then looks for ways to annoy, if there is no response when it is tipping 'time?' .--%> , . , , * \u25a0 '\u25a0'"\u25a0 If "the apartment house/ tipping- stopped with .the janitor and the.hall boy it would.not.be quite so bad, but in many places where there is}a : switchboard the telephoneigirl has to be "seen." She sits there/ usui ally chewing gum and doing no more -than she is paid v for doing, and then she'wants to be: tipped,;not; for \ any, special; favor, or service Tendered, but just on gen-/? principles. /And' whatever the others; may do to', play even with a nontipper, this young 'woman can inflict; what amounts-to almost torture rif you do not stand jfor her little : holdup. She can attend to .a. littler detail like having the telephone ring during the night ( • or early in the' morning; •\u25a0 she can see that you \u25a0do not get the right number; can> take pains that, you are interrupted in the middle of an important conversa tion, and there are several other things she can do to make it unpleasant for you. . • "Is it /better- to fight' thq . system, refuse to pay the: blackmail demanded and go to the: agent or the own er of -the: building for relief, or pay, pay, pay?" was a. question a y young married man who was having his first: experience with the apartment house band of pirates asked a group of friends recently' after he had given his experience and told what it was costing him for tips. . > _}-, , > it is the impulse of every man to fight the. system, at, first. He can go to the agent or the owner of the building, make. his complaint; arid if his grievance is a just one he may get the janitor, the hall boy or*the telephone girl discharged. Then he finds he is no better off than before.. The <iew ones will be just as insistent and probably "more careful than the others, and, while they may not give provocation for another complaint for a time, a man will soon find that he is not! getting all the attention and the good service his neighbors are getting. After a little while he will find the struggle unequal and the system will have another victory to. its credit. There is nothing finicky about persons who take tips. They never apply a test to the money they get to see whether it is .tainted. • On the contrary, if they know of anything that is not quite right they get more insistent in their demands. There is a man in New York who lays money on the races.. He does not run a so called poolroom, for no one goes to his place of business, but there are many wealthy men who telephone in their bets, and they are men who will send along as much as $5,000 on a single race. If he wins they send a check to him, and if they win he pays off in the same way, but all the business is done by telephone. WHERE TIME IS MONEY The time, is so short between the announcement of the-odds and the sending of the horses to the post that it is necessary the telephone service should be as near perfect as it can be. There are many wires run ning into this man's office, and for the few minutes before each race they are all busy. The wire chief, or. the district chief, or the ex change chief, or whatever he may be called for that exchange, has to be tipped every, week or every \u25a0month, as the case may be, but regularly. The mere fact that this man is receiving a salary from the com pany for trying to make the service the; best that it can be makes no difference to him. He has to have something besides. It is presumed that this money, or at least part of it, is divided among the girls of the exchange who have charge of the wires that go into this room. . >" '• The man who pays the tips knows it is "nothing more or less than blackmail. But if the payment is delayed for any time there isconfusion in the service. Wires get crossed or there is a ctftoff in the middle of a sentence. The; players report that they were unable to get the number and: the service is generally unsat isfactory: This continuous annoyance might not make much difference to the ordinary user of a telephone, but in a case like the one in question, in which time is an essential ; factor, , such, service means a large money loss. This man can not. afford to fight the sys tem. It might mean -publicity that would ruin his business, and in any event before he could effect a. reform the men who exercise their money with him would/be disgusted at > their failure to get him every day fand! would find another place to play, so he. pays with regularity and says, nothing. It is impossible for persons in any business "to es cape this insistent appeal for graft in the guise of tips. If the office boy takes one step from the beaten path he has to be paid extra, or the next time he will sulk . and not take the step. The delivery man -from the •large department store expects; to be" recompensed when he delivers a' package, although the store pays him for his services and expends thousands of dollars : in advertising to get the -tradei . , ; Take, for instance, an actor appearing in vaudeville*. In the first place^he has been compelled to pay 10 per cent of his weekly salary to the booking agency, al; though under a proviii6n of a Jaw passed at the last session \ of the legislature \u25a0 this has been reduced to "5 per ; cent. When , he > gets to : the . th eater there . is nothing to do but 'pay money. The leader of the: orchestra \u25a0 has to be tipped, : likewise the • property man and .the scene shifters, and the call boy is there with the outstretched; palm.. "Any 'rone of /these can- make • an act go wrong; and make an- actor suffer a/loss in professional prestige. The actors know this and they .stand for; the blackmail.- : .. . , There is 1 a suspicion that all of the theatrical tipping is not done in, the 'back of the house. When at tha opening night it is impossible to get any kind of a seat at the box office and men are on the sidewalk selling choice seats at an advance of from SO cent^ to §23 it is just possible that they" have given the gesv tlemanly treasurer of the theater a sxrall tip. As one theatrical manager in this city has demonstrated that ticket speculating can be reduced to a minimum that does away with much of the annoyance, many per sons, think the speculators have to hand some money to persons connected with the theaters or they woul4 not be, "Derating. The dry goods stores are compelled to pay tips. The dress makers demand 10 per cent commission on the sale of all goods their customers purchase. Of course in the long run that comes out of the pocketJ of the ultimate consumer, and it is presumed the merchant in fixing the price of drcs3 good 3 makes an allowance for a certain quantity to be sold on which the dress makers will get their tips. THE BARBER'S TIP There are few men with the moral courage to re- fuse to give a tip to a barber, and there are few with In All Probability There Would Be an ;/: Ambulance Call- C the physical courage to go back to the same shop after once refusing. Of all the men Who demand and receive tips the barber can make it the most unpleas ant for those who do not pay, provided he can get a second chance at the man. The bootblack wants a nickel more than his advertised price, and a manicur ist can give you a look that will sour milk if a tip is not forthcoming, although ihe may figure that as pay for entertaining you with gossip. . % £*•' Whenever the tipping question is brought up somo one is sure to say that it is a custom that has come to us from Europe, and bad as it is here it h worse there. Any person who has lived in Europe knows that this is not true. It i 3 customary and necessary in all European countries to tip the servant*, but a dollar distributed there in gratuities will get more and be more appreciated than $10 here. There the people are grateful "for what they receive, and here they grumble because it is not more. For instance, a policeman in London will show every courtesy to a stranger, and if he be on duty at a park or art gallery will point out the things of in terest. He docs not ask anything for thii, but he ex pects something. Hand him a penny, equivalent to 2 cents of our money; he will thank you, and he ex pects no more. Think what would happen to a stranger who, stepping up to a Ntw Yotk policeman, asked and got the information desired and then hand ed him 2 cents." In all probability there would be an ambulance call. If any man wants to try the experi ment of offering a Broadway policeman 2 cents as a tip he can undoubtedly make good terms with the moving picture people. The same thing applies to persons in, other lines. Give a hotel porter here the same tip that you would give one in' Europe and your trunk will hardly live to tell the tale. You can get excellent service there for a. week for what it costs to get a pitcher of ice water in any of the best hotels here. The European servants expects a. little more from Americans, or rather they think all Americans fxc millionaires be cause a few Pittsburg persons and their imitators from the smaller. and also the larger cities hays been so lavish in the distribution of money. ; -Why do the American people continue to pay thij exorbitant tax in the way of tips, and why do they submit to the continual holdups? One reason is that the average person moves along the line of least re sistance, and submission to the extortion means peace of mind, less worry and the avoidance of much trou bie. fij&j There is another reason, and it is the one which is responsible for the growth of a system which mani fests itself in the demand for tips in daily life and for graft in governmental affairs. Every person is look ing for a special privilege, an advantage over every other person. That is the reason the man who hand 3 the head waiter a tip expects a better seat than the man who' does not tip, although the latter may have a larger check. The man who tips a barber 25 cents hopes to get more attention than the one. who pays a dime, although one spends as much with the pra» prietor of the shop as the other. It is an evil the law makers of several states hay« recognized and tried to abolish. It has been declared by those who have given the subject some study that it can not be eliminated so long as human, greed exists. It may be that the time will come when the people will get angry at these latter day pirates and will start a movement to put an end to the giving of tips. It is not' probable that we will see those bright days until the Pittsburg millionaire can content him self, with what the ordinary mortals have, and that means" for a time, at least, we" shall recognize and pay tribute when we do recognize "the sign of the' out . strc tencu ~ pcxixn. The San Francisco Sunday Call