I suppose that complaints of this practice of tipping or expecting fees reached the ears of the landlords, who, honest men, no doubt had found their advantage in it; for, in the summer of 1877, nine of the principal hotels in Switzerland announced to the public that, with a view to putting a stop to it, they should thenceforth make a charge which would cover everything, so that visitors should not be annoyed longer in this way. But the system which they did adopt was an erroneous one, and was only calculated to place an additional burden on their guests—in other words, they made an extra charge for their rooms; so that the occupants had to pay nightly, in some cases, perhaps as much as they would have paid once for all as gratuity, while in many cases gratuities would continue to be given. We came upon one of these hotels, the Schweizerhoff in Lucerne. Here, in conformity with the new rule, one charge was made for rooms per night, inclusive of attendance and lights, and a bill was stuck up in the rooms containing a notice in the following terms:— ‘_Avis. Messieurs les étrangers sont priés de ne plus donner de pour boires aux employés de l’Hotel. Toute le service dans l’intérieur de l’Hotel ainsi que l’éclairage est compris dans le prix de l’appartement._’ Such a notice was only valuable if it had borne that the servants were _expressly prohibited_, upon pain of dismissal, from taking any gratuity; but while it contained nothing but what was always previously implied in the charge for service, and left the charge for porterage of luggage as performed _extérieur_ (a service which has always been recompensed by a gratuity, and which the porter here duly accepted), the very form of the notice, ‘Pray, don’t,’ rather suggests the idea that you ought to give. The evil is really so great that a more efficient and beneficial method ought to be taken by the hotels. In Italy I have sometimes been asked for a gratuity by a messenger from a shop on delivering a purchase made. * * * * *