HOTEL TIPS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3366, 4 November 1911, Page 4

HOTEL TIPS.

EXPENSIVE LIVING IN PARIS

Only a too hardy annual subject, is that of hotel tips. It is always with us m the summer, says the Paris correspondent of the London “Daily Telegraph,’ ’ except perhaps in one London hotel, which is, doubtless, grieved and irritated. “Constant Readers” once more write to the Paris papers in different state of ire and perplexity. One lady paints a vivid, but not at all overcolored picture of the agony of the departing hotel guest, upon whom a crowd of various servants swarm .like locusts just when he has exhausted his change. Ho generally ends by bestowing an absurdly large sum, having no smaller coin, upon the attendant who never attended upon him, while the lowest tip precisely went to the very servant who looked after him best. Why, asks the lady, should not the proprietor print a list of the various servants at the end of tell bill? The hotel “guest” would write a figure down opposite each name and pay the whole in a lump sum with the bill. “Never suggest such a thing!” writes in immediate alarm an elderly gentleman, who is evidently the pattern of methodical practice; “the only result would be that you would end by having to tip twice over. Do as I do. 1 Aiu ui sdiq. jo uoiysanb oqy .ioau y,iuijy bed-room the night before leaving, and prepare the exact sums for each servant beforehand, having taken care to secure the 'needful change and to calculate the total of by gratuities at the rate of 10 per cent, on a bil lof £6 or £B, and 5 per cent, over that. Thus I leave tho next morning without fuss, and the servants arc satisfied while I am tranquil.” If the elderly gentleman, on leaving a. hotel has never once mot suddenly a servant whose existence ho had forgotten, and for whose tip,lie has kept no change, he is the Admirable Crichton of travellers.