PEOPLE'S SAVINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 3000, 19 December 1935, Page 6

PEOPLE'S SAVINGS.

SOME UNUSUAL "BANKS."

The Savings Bank deposits of Australia have been announced as £220 millions for 1935, but although they represent most of the people's savings, there are still individuals who think they know a better method than the bank (says the Melbourne "Herald"). Even in these enlightened days money will be found hoarded in some very strange places. Not all these people can rightly be termed misers. Many are thrifty souls, but timid.

The strangest bank ever seen was possibly that in the wheel of a bullock wagon. The owner and driver of the wagon had several pockets cut in the wheel, a small section of wood being replaced after the money had been placed in the hollow, and a sheet of tin nailed over the place. It looked like a rough repair to the wheel, and nobody would think of looking there for money.

Money has been carried in the lining of coats, mattresses and in the toes of boots. These are anything but safe banks, as there is always a danger of fire destroying the bank and its contents. Notes in clothes and mattresses like this are apt to crumble, too, if left there for very long.

A woman 011 the Snowy River put her savings in the kitchen chimney. She had all notes changed into silver, so that there would be 110 danger to fear fi'om rats. One night while she was away the house was burnt down, and when she went to get her savings she found a solid mass of silver. Of course, she got something for the silver lump, but nothing like its real coin value.

A farmer used a small ant hill for a bank. Regularly he took his savings to this ant hill, in which he had made a small hole, and, after placing them in a tin, he put the section which served as a lid back in place and filled the crack up with a little of the earth mixed with water. It was the last place in which a burglar would think of looking for a hoard. But even this bank proved unsafe. His two sons decided to make a tennis court, so with a wlieelbarrow and a couple of picks they set about demolishing the ant hill, intending to use the material for the tennis court. The secret hoard was located and the family had to be given presents to keep them quiet.

A dairy farmer had a fine win at the races and decided to put the money well away for a few years until his family grew up and he could then sit back and enjoy living 011 the money he had won. He bought a, new separator, but before installing it he put the money in a tin box and cemented it into the dairy floor underneath the space where the new separator was to rest. To get at the money the separator had to be removed and the concrete floor taken up. •