The Government operates hotels in the Canal Zone, and tipping is permitted. Guests who fail to tip are treated by the servitors precisely like they are treated in private hotels, but the writer, who boarded three months in one of the Government hotels in the Canal Zone, during which time he did not tip the waiter, found that a complaint to the manager about poor service would result in the prompt discipline of the offending servitor. This is more than can be said of many privately operated hotels. In this connection, it is noteworthy that the only whisper of graft in the building of the $400,000,000 canal was the charge made against the purchasing agent of the Commissary that he split commissions with the houses from which he purchased supplies. Splitting commissions is the itching palm in commerce. It would seem that before passing laws to regulate tipping among citizens, the Government, state and national, should be able to come into court with clean hands. Until the Government rids its service of the spirit of graft the law-makers are beating around the bush. XV LAWS AGAINST TIPPING Efforts to abolish or regulate the custom of tipping have been made in the Legislatures of practically all of the States. Often after passing legislative barriers the laws have fallen before Executive vetoes, so that scarcely half a dozen States now have statutes on the subject. The State of Washington adopted a law prohibiting tipping, but it was so generally ignored that the Legislature of 1913 repealed it. This shows that, at first blush, a social custom of long standing has a stronger influence upon the people than a conscientious conviction registered in a new law. Yet, as abortive as the legal campaign against tipping has been thus far, the constant recurrence of the issue in the Legislatures, and the voluntary attempts at regulation being made by hotels and other public service enterprises, show that the propaganda is making headway and that there are great moral resources in the people ready to be called into action. CUSTOM ABOVE LAW The opposition to tipping is unorganized, undisciplined and inarticulate, while the beneficiaries of the custom, with a munificent tribute to nerve activity, are upon a highly efficient basis of operation. Even with a law at his back to stiffen his moral resolution, the average citizen feels more afraid of violating the custom than of violating the law. It is because of the intangible nature of the custom from his viewpoint. A waiter can do so many things to annoy a non-tipping patron that the patron cannot present in the form of a concrete complaint, yet which are quite real and irritating. The upshot is that the patron swallows his conscientious objection to the custom and pays the tribute for fair service.