low that they
are obliged to find some means of increasing their earnings. But will it
ever be possible to suppress the "evil"? Allow me to doubt it. The thing
is, therefore, to prevent tipping taking the form of an imposition. This
can only be done by paying good wages.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Barr gives the straight tip.]

A native of Cuba once said to me, with an air of proud superiority, "We
have the yellow fever _always_ in Havana." I was unable to make any such
boastful claim for North America, and so the Cuban rightly thought he
had the advantage of me. They think nothing of the yellow fever in
Havana, but when the malady is imported into Florida the people of that
peninsula become panic-stricken. The yellow fever in the Southern States
strikes terror. It seems to be worse in its effects when it enters the
States than it is where they always have it. So it is with tipping. It
is always present in Europe in a mild form, but periodically tipping
swoops down upon the United States, and its effects are dreadful to
contemplate. If tipping ever becomes epidemic in America, the
unfortunate citizens will have to leave, and seek a cheaper country, for
the haughty waiter in an American hotel scorns the humbler coins of the
realm, and accepts nothing less than half a dollar. Happily, tipping
has, up to date, been more or less of an exotic in America, but I have
grave fears that the Chicago Exhibition, attracting as it does so many
incurable tippers from Europe, will cause the disease to take firm root
in the States, and entail years of suffering hereafter.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Summing up.]

I do not agree with the member of the club who holds in one paragraph
that Scotsmen are mean in the giving of tips. Speaking as a Scotsman
myself, I admit that we like to go the whole distance from Liverpool
Street to Charing Cross for our penny. We desire to get the worth of
our bawbee. And it is a cold day when we don't. But it must be
remembered that a Scotsman is conscientious, and he knows that tipping
is an indefensible vice, so he discourages it as much as possible, being
compelled by custom to fall in with it. Then, again, the man who claims
that Americans are not liberal doesn't know what he is talking about.
The trouble with the American is that he does not know the exact amount
to give, and that bothers him, and causes him to curse the custom in
choice and