e been able to answer easily. In his most
characteristic development the American hotel clerk is an urbane
living encyclopaedia, as passionless as the gods, as unbiassed as the
multiplication table, and as tireless as a Corliss engine.

Traveller's tales as to the system of "tipping" in American hotels
differ widely. The truth is probably as far from the indignant
Briton's assertion, based probably upon one flagrant instance in New
York, that "it is ten times worse than in England and tantamount to
robbery with violence," as from the patriotic American's assurance
that "The thing, sir, is absolutely unknown in our free and
enlightened country; no American citizen would demean himself to
accept a gratuity." To judge from my own experience, I should say that
the practice was quite as common in such cities as Boston, New York,
and Philadelphia as in Europe, and more onerous because the amounts
expected are larger. A dollar goes no farther than a shilling.
Moreover, the gratuity is usually given in the form of "refreshers"
from day to day, so that the vengeance of the disappointed is less
easily evaded. Miss Bates, a very friendly writer on America, reports
various unpleasantnesses that she received from untipped waiters, and
tells of an American who found that his gratuities for two months at a
Long Branch hotel (for three persons and their horses) amounted to
L40. In certain other walks of life the habit of tipping is carried to
more extremes in New York than in any European city I know of. Thus
the charge for a shave (already sufficiently high) is 7-1/2_d._, but
the operator expects 2-1/2_d._ more for himself. One barber with whom
I talked on the subject openly avowed that he considered himself
wronged if he did not get his fee, and recounted the various devices
he and his fellows practised to extract gratuities from the unwilling.
As one goes West or South the system of tipping seems to fall more and
more into abeyance, though it will always be found a useful smoother
of the way. In California, so far as I could judge, it was almost
entirely unknown, and the Californian hotels are among the best in the
Union.

Among the lessons which English and other European hotels might learn
from American hotels may be named the following:

1. The combination of the present _a la carte_ system with the
inclusive or American system, by which those who don't want the
trouble of ordering their repasts may be sure of finding meals, w