If there is one thing more than another which the motor-car has revived and intensified it is the habit and practice of tipping. I need not give a lecture on tips. All of us agree, more or less, that the present-day tip is one of the banes of existence. But there are two sides to the question—one we as the givers of tips know a good deal about. Few know much about the other side—the side of the worker for and receiver of tips.

Tips must therefore be divided into two classes—the necessary tip and the unnecessary. There are more of the latter than the former. Under the head of necessary tips I would place the garage tip, whether the garage be a public one or a private one at the house of a friend. There are a few other necessary tips, such as when a friend lends you a car for a drive or a tour or when your friend’s chauffeur drives you to the railway station at an unusual hour or in very bad weather.

Luckily the motor-car is coming into such general use to-day that those who may possess one are not necessarily put down as millionaires. The chauffeur, attendants and servants generally are beginning to realise this and no longer expect a handful of money from every motoriste.

The amount of tips which should be given, in the numerous cases which I am going to mention, should depend on your income and ability to afford. That millionaires are not usually generous tippers is a well-known fact. Generally it is from the woman or man who is not very well off and who can ill afford it that the biggest tips come.

To those who count their half-crowns as worth a full thirty pence and value them accordingly, I would say—Do not be afraid to accept a friend’s invitation to visit them with your motor-car because you cannot afford to do much tipping. Be sensible about this matter and I can assure you that your friend’s chauffeur, or groom, will also be sensible and welcome the modest shilling or half-crown you give him.

Tipping at a public garage, if you keep your car there, has already been touched on in a previous chapter. If you go on a tour or a little trip, driving yourself, and put your car in a public garage or the one attached to your hotel or roadside inn, your car will not be touched unless you so order. Then for cleaning it, furnishing petrol, charging battery or anything else which may be wanted, there are regulation charges and these will be put down in your bill. The attendant at the garage may or may not be the man who did the work, but if he is it would be quite the proper thing to give him a small tip, just as you might tip the waiter or the chambermaid had they done any satisfactory work for you. But this need not be more than either waiter or chambermaid receive, and if your car has not been cleaned it is scarcely necessary to give the attendant even sixpence unless he has done some service for you.

Some hotels and wayside inns nowadays clean cars which stop with them overnight without extra charge, yet the fee they charge for the garage really covers this. In such case a shilling to the man who did the work would not be amiss. Your car may come into his hands again and he may do better work on it because of the little tip.

If stopping just for lunch or tea at an hotel or inn and, for convenience’ sake, you run your car into the yard or garage, a small tip is necessary.

If you stop the night at a friend’s house and your car is placed in your hostess’s garage, you will find it spick and span in the morning with water in the tank and your petrol-tank also replenished. Perhaps this petrol has been supplied from the spare can you carry, or it may have come from your friend’s supply.

You can quickly find out this. Naturally you will test your tanks and you can question

the attendant. Should the petrol-tank not be filled up and should you have used all yours you would naturally ask for enough to fill your wants. Pay for this, for in most garages nowadays a careful account is kept of petrol and other expenses. A five-shilling tip for the man is quite enough.

If your hostess should have a stable only and not a garage, and the man is only able to clean your car as he would a carriage and you have to do the filling of the tanks and the starting of the engine and so on, a smaller tip is all that is necessary.

In staying a week-end at a country house, if your car has not been used during your stay the tip of five shillings is quite sufficient. But rules on such points depend on circumstances. If the weather has been bad and the car is in a very muddy state the man will probably have had considerable extra work to bring out your car clean and shining. Remember what you would have had to pay at a public garage and act accordingly.

If you merely pay a call or go to lunch or tea with a friend, and your hostess has a chauffeur who takes the car from you and brings it up to the front door at your departure, a little tip, perhaps two shillings, should suffice.

But such a tip is quite an unnecessary one. The man has done nothing but what he has been paid to do by your hostess. He has done no special or extra work especially for you.

It is always a good thing to keep this in mind whether or no a man whom you are about to tip has performed any direct service for you, extra in any way to what he is paid his wages for, in connection with your car. If he has, a tip is not out of place, if you can afford to give one.

Do not let the idea run away with you that simply because you own and drive a car you must be handing tips to everybody. More than half the tips given are absolutely unnecessary.

There are dozens of cases where people foolishly tip. If your hostess’s groom drove you in the dog-cart to the station to catch a train you might think a two-shilling tip all-sufficient. Yet when her chauffeur takes you to the same place in a motor-car you wonder whether he will think five shillings is enough. It is really very absurd. If we have to tip, why not treat the motor-car as we would any vehicle and the chauffeur as we would any groom or coachman?

There are some people who feel justified, if sent up to town in a friend’s car, in giving the chauffeur as a tip the amount of the first-class railway fare for the distance. A tip decidedly should be given, but certainly not so large a one as this, in most cases, would figure out.

If taken to town from a country house, or vice versa, and one travels in the car with one’s hostess, certainly no tip is necessary; nor should one be given if one goes for a drive with one’s hostess.

Should a friend lend you a car for a day or a drive, a small tip is properly given; but if a friend lends you a car for a tour of some days, the proper thing is to offer to pay the chauffeur’s wages for the week. A tip on the top of this should depend on the manner in which the man serves you.

I have mentioned all these different points because at some time or another they may be actual experiences of the woman who owns and drives her own car.

I do not claim to be an authority on tipping. I distribute a good many gold and silver pieces during a year, but I tip for services rendered and use common sense about the amounts. I get the best of service everywhere.

If every woman who drives her own car followed my rule in this respect the tipping nuisance would not be such a terrible thing after all.