st possibilities of cheaply
purchased privileges on future trips acted as a palliative to
this little sting. And the thought of what might happen if the
traveler in America should try to overcome the virtue of one of
our express-train conductors with a 'quarter' brought all our
party to see the circumstance from a humorous point of view.
Truth to relate, it marked the beginning of a custom we
followed--since we learned that it was general--of buying our
way past any obstacle that appeared to interrupt the smoothness
or comfort of our daily progress. With a little silver we
henceforth obtained concessions from grand-looking policemen,
soldiers on guard, vergers in churches, museum custodians. It is
a common custom for conductors on street cars in Continental
Europe to hold out their hands to receive as a tip any small
change due, but first handed over to the passenger. You may have
your choice in European travel: Bribe and be otherwise happy and
free, or virtuously decline to bribe and be snubbed, ordered
about and forbidden to see things.

BORDERS ON BLACKMAIL

"The tipping system, bad as it is becoming in America, is in
Europe universal and accepted by all classes of travelers as an
inevitable nuisance. It often borders on blackmail. Tippers go
raving mad in recounting their wrongs under the tyrannies of the
system, the newspapers by turn rail or make merry over it, the
hotel keepers and other employers of the class have their excuse
that they pay wages to their servants--but the tipping goes on
forever. Why is it? Who is to blame?

"These questions I have asked representative waiters--for
representatives these men have, many of them being organized
into benefit societies and a small proportion in a sort of trade
union. But one answer was given. The system is detestable to
every man and woman of the serving class possessing the least
degree of self-respect. It is demoralizing to all who either
give or receive tips. The real beneficiaries of the system are
the employers. An end to it, with a fair standard of wages,
would be a boon of the first order to employees, a means of
compelling hotel proprietors to put their business on a basis of
fair dealing, and an incalculable aid to the tranquillity and
pleasure of the general public.

MORAL PIRATES

"I ha