SURPRISE PACKET" DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 300, 17 December 1917, Page 6

SURPRISE PACKET" DAY.

At tho invitation of the commercial travellers who are running a big "surprise packet" sale on Wednesday in aid of the Red Cross Fund a " Star" representative visited their headquarters and witnessed over a hundred smart young men hard at work distributing the prize coupons in envelopes. The method adopted is to distribute different classes of goods so that they arc spread over as many separate packages as possible, and the envelopes are put up in bundles of twenty. These are double checked, and spread out on benches. The most important part of the distribution has yet to take place. This afternoon at the Commercial Travellers' Club a number of lady citizens and a police officer attended to witness the distribution of the special prizes, about four hundred in number, and mostly of large money value. As these are checked with the list they are put in envelopes, and under the same supervision each of these envelopes is inserted at random in one of the same number of packets in place of an envelope containing a smaller prize coupon. The method is fair and absolutely above suspicion of any unfairness. The special prizes include some very valuable gifts from country people-espe-cially on the East Coast. It is stated that one commercial traveller himself collected prizes to the value of nine hundred pounds, all of which are included hi tho " surprises."