THE GIRL WITH THE BOX.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9092, 19 May 1908, Page 7

THE GIRL WITH THE BOX.

The more one reads of Hospital i Saturdays in Sydney the more ad- '■'. jniration one had for the Sydney girl with the oox. Her insistence, her energy, and her good humour make a -oarming picture, and one is tempted, says the Christchurch "Press," to ask why collectors in our towns can not achieve similar results. Surely Austrliaan girls have no monopoly in the qualities which go to make a good collector. The record sum of ££,868 12s 8d was collected this year of which £691 was given in sixpences, .£1,078 in threepences, ,i 21.4 70 in pence, and £449 in halfpence. A thousand pounds in pennies takes a , . good deal of collecting, If one wanted to escape the collectors, the only thing to do, short of .pot going out, was to drive about in a cab. Trams ' were no sanctuary, for the daring > collectors boarded them, and "raked" in search of coppers. "For the <*?Grision," says the Sydney "Her- . aid," "they threw off the demureness and reserve which was, if we believe our grandmothers, the fine . flower of two generations back. Theii mission protected them." They met v/itu some abruptness, and some bad grace, and they were often evaded and often directly refused, but they met with very lictle downright rudeH 633. A curious feature of the collecting noticed by the "Herald" was the iufrequency with which women were asked to contribute, and it is suggested that next Hospital Saturday may see straw-hatted parades of the block enrolled as a corps for among women. "Generally it waa nut tlie well-to do who gave the most liberally. Collectors who worked the poorest districts found people just as open-hearted and openhanded as they were in the fashionable suburbs. They know better, perhaps, the good work the hospitals do. To take only one example out of possible scores, the carters.' on their brick-drays and the Chinese on their market-carts were as generous as any." It is no joke standing all day in the warm May sun, talking most " of the time to strangers, and rattling a heavy box continually before passers-by, and the "Herald" is ■ quite right when it says the girl with the box is a fine sample of the pluck nud resource of the Australian •"wtean.