The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America — John Shaqi
The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in AmericaScott, William R. (William Rufus)
Philosophy
The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America
Scott, William R. (William Rufus)
Tipping
The foregoing provision makes it certain that, even if patrons are timid
about obeying the law and if employers and employees disregard it, the
fight against the custom will go right on, just as does the fight
against bootlegging after saloons have been banished from a city. The
Tennessee law also has a more elaborate scale of fines, as the following
section shows:
"Be it further enacted that any hotel, restaurant, cafe, barber
shop, dining car, railroad or sleeping car company, and the
manager, officer or agent of the same in charge, violating this
act or wilfully allowing the same to be violated in any way,
shall each be subject to a penalty of not less than $10 nor more
than $50 for each tip allowed to be given. If any person shall
give an employee any gratuity or tip each person shall be
subject to a fine of not more than $25 and not less than $5 for
each offense. If any of the above employees shall receive a
gratuity or tip he or she shall be subject to a fine of not more
than $25 nor less than $5 for each offense. Should any hotel,
restaurant, cafe, barber shop, dining car, railroad company or
sleeping car company fail, neglect or refuse to post notice of
this act as required herein, such hotel, restaurant, cafe,
barber shop, dining car, railroad or sleeping car company shall
be subject to a fine not to exceed $100 for each day it shall
fail."
Naturally if this law is enforced with any fidelity by the grand
juries, not to mention such actions as may be instituted by the public,
tipping in Tennessee in the specified public service place will become
extinct, or assume a guise not covered by the law. But if tipping is
restrained only in the seven places enumerated and allowed to be
practiced unrestrained everywhere else, only a limited industrial
democracy will be attained, and the part of the custom left alive will
spread by its own insidious processes to the places preempted.
THE ILLINOIS COMPROMISE
When the public conscience is fully aroused to the need of stifling this
custom, the legal mind will be able to draw up a law that will prevent
tipping anywhere and under any circumstances. The Illinois law is a
particular example of a half-way measure in that it seeks only to
prohibit the practice of leasing tipping concessions to employees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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