Vails were the predecessors of
tips in restaurants and other public places; they were
gratuities given to
servants by
visitors to the
homes they were employed in. This practice in
England dates back to about the
1500s and continued until at least the early
1900s. The idea was that
guests in the home gave servants extra
work above their usual duties, and so the vails were
compensation for that work. However, the number of servants each expecting
money could grow burdensome;
Oliver Goldsmith is said to have not gone to evening parties of his aristocratic
patrons "because he had not a guinea to spare wherewith to fee the
lacquey in attendance, who took charge of his cloak or sword" and
Samuel Johnson is supposed to have avoided some gatherings for the same reason. There are also stories of masters who took a cut of their servants' profits.
Servants could also decide to be unpleasant to those who did not hand over enough money -- injuring guests' horses or damaging their clothes, for example. In the 1760s groups of masters unsuccessfully attempted to abolish the practice, but servants rebelled, throwing rocks through windows and throwing objects at the assembled wealthy.
By 1900, the English were also blaming American visitors for overtipping servants and raising their expectations for English visitors. The practice was fairly widespread in the U.S. by that time, but after World War I the number of homes with servants declined enough to make it uncommon again in both countries. However, Letitia Baldridge's books on etiquette from the 1980s still recommended tipping friends' cooks, and any servants who made beds or ironed clothing for the visitors, approximately $10.
Sources:
Segrave, Kerry. Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1998.
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