DAFFODIL DAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17279, 21 September 1916, Page 7

DAFFODIL DAY.

IN . AID OF- CHRISTMAS GIFTS f AND- Y.M.O.A. HUTMENT.

I OVER £4OO COLLECTED,

Daffodil Day was highly successful in the city yesterday. Largo numbers of ladies, looking very charming in their spring costumes, appealed to passers-by and offered bunches of the beautiful flowers. As usual, a strong motor-ear corps had been formed to ■help the ladies, and the oars carried them, to different places, where collecting boxes were used. Most of the selling was done in Cathedral Square. Opposite the Cathedral a special stand had been erected and decorated with national flags arid emblems.

The headquarters of the committeo and the sellers was in the Olympia Rink, in Hereford Stfeet. There supplies daffodils, violets and other seasonal flowers were received and with deft ingers were made into bunches and buttonholes. The sales went so briskly in the morning that the supplies of daffodils by noon were somewhat short of requirements, and members of the committee' had to get to work to obtain reinforcements from suburban gardens. The principal supply was from Colonel R. H. Rhodes’s estate at Otahuna,' which produced many splendid daffodl blooms.

Sone of the sellers attended at the Addington yards during the day, and did food business there. A bunch of daffodils sold by auction by the Farmers’ Co-operative Association brought the sum of £7 3s 6d. In the city, also, there, were some large single bids. O'no person, by way of- a joke, apparently, after receiving a bunch of flowers, placed' a farthing in the collectingbox. During the afternoon, the coin was auctioiCd and was bought by Mr Douglas for £5 ss. A painting of a hutment bf Mr G. W. Bradley, used as a noster in Cathedral Square, was bought bv Mr J. I. Rovds for £3. About £125 was obtained in sixpenny pieces. Tiis is about a quarter of the total svm collected, £-123 17s lOrl. p-acticallv ill of which will be available for hivfraents near, the trenches to carry on thi work of tho Y.M.C.A.. and ’ for Christmas gifts to New Zealand soldieri. Last year, the total was £360. .The committee feels that, in the cirenn'tances. the response was v°rv satisfactory. All the ladies worked very hare', and. the owners of motor-.c-rs ami omhiers and other gentlemen gave valuabe services.