Judge, 1913-03-29 · page 14 of 24
Judge — March 29, 1913 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes the American tipping culture that had grown excessive by the early 20th century. The illustration shows a chaotic collision between a waiter and bellhop, both distracted by fantasies of tips rather than their duties—the waiter daydreaming about money while the bellhop imagines pleasing a wealthy patron. The text argues that wealthy American travelers abroad popularized extravagant tipping to gain attention, and this habit has metastasized at home. Now service workers of all kinds—many indistinguishable from ordinary citizens—aggressively pursue tips in "all circumstances to the bitter end." The satire mocks how this system has become a parasitic burden affecting everyone, from the stingy to the generous, while service workers remain perpetually anxious about potential earnings rather than performing their actual jobs competently.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TIPPING Tipping the waiter has developed a vast number of persons in all walks of life that wait for tips. Formerly the banditti of various foreign countries were described as terrible persons to meet. They were pictured like Bashi-bazouks in a comic opera chorus, and were easy to see first. But since a certain class of American travelers abroad have developed tipping to a domi- nating industry, nothing further is heard of professional robbers, who are considerate and mild-mannered rascals when compared with the muliiiude—some of whom wear distinguishing clothes, although many of them are above suspicion in attire—of exemplary and respectable citizens (according to foreign standards) who will pursue a tip in all cir- cumstances to the bitter end. These traveling Americans originally were of little fame at home. They had got hold of a great deal of money by one or another sort of manufacture, and it was at first strange for them to command the de- tail of attention bestowed upon Royal Personages and Potentates by the gratuitous expenditure of half a sovereign, a five-franc pice, or THE WAITER the equivalents of these moneys in other countries. The game grew upon them with increase of vanity and pride, and in order to win like attention at home they boosted tips here until the habit falls with crushing force alike upon the stingy and the generous, the rich and those chronically lacking in change, the just and the unjust, Tip and the world laughs with you; refrain and you weep alone. The system has grown to such proportions that pecuniary danger lurks in every hotel and coin must be disbursed everywhere else. And yet tipping has little tragedies of its own. Junct’s artist has illustrated one of these above. A waiter with his mind on what a flush bridegroom may or may not give up, instead of upon his immediate right of way, collides head-on with a bellhop who is paging a multi- millionaire and at the same time speculating with the tip he thinks he is going to receive. Such a catastrophe is viewed with dismay by those within the tipping circle, while a depressing commiseration, if not a poignant and throbbing grief, fills the mere outsider who may witness * SJ. A. Waldivn comicbooks.com