"We face a condition, not a theory," assert those employers who defend their adaptation of wages to the tipping custom. "The public seems determined to bestow gratuities, and if we paid full wages in addition, our employees would be the highest paid workers in the world." But two wrongs do not make a right. THREE KINDS OF EMPLOYERS Employers who profit by tipping are classified as follows: 1. Those who pay living wages and positively forbid gratuities. 2. Those who pay average competitive wages and maintain a passive attitude toward gratuities. 3. Those who pay minimum, or no, wages, and aggressively exploit the propensity to give. At present the first class constitutes almost an infinitesimal minority. Here and there in large cities there are barber shops which advertise a "No-Tip" policy, and occasionally a hotel or restaurant. In the second class are most of the moderate-price places catering to the public. The employers and employees welcome gratuities but do not make them the prime object in their relations with patrons. The third class includes the high-grade hotels, sleeping car companies, expensively conducted restaurants and like enterprises. This is the class which sets the pace through the patronage of the socially or financially prominent. A few of the more noteworthy employers who profit by the custom follow: The Pullman Company, The Hotel Company, The Taxicab Company, The Transfer Company, The Steam Ship Company, The Master Barber, The Apartment House Owner, The Restaurant, The Telegraph Company. That an organized conspiracy exists between employers and employees to exploit the public is realized vaguely, if at all, by the average patron. Proof of this allegation may be found at the cashier's desk of almost any restaurant or hotel. The waiter invariably is given change that will make it easy for the patron to tip. He returns with the change arranged in such a way on the tray that the patron must fumble over all of it if he wants the full amount. The employer's and the waiter's theory is that, rather than do this, he will leave a dime or a quarter in one corner. In a barber shop the patron always receives small change so that it will be easy to "remember" the porter. Yet, such a practice is the mildest indictment that may be brought against employers for entering a conspiracy to exploit patrons. SELLING THE TIP PRIVILEGE In New York and Chicago particularly, many employers went so far (and still maintain the practice) as to sell to outside persons and companies the privilege of collecting the tips in their places of business. That is to say, these outside parties were to furnish waiters, cloak room attendants and other employees to the hotel or restaurant and depend upon the tips for their remuneration.