STREET COLLECTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 21285, 14 December 1932, Page 3

STREET COLLECTIONS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,- —I see in to-night’s ' Star ’ that “ Observer ” —not a very accurate one apparently—takes exception to my remarks about street days. As her letter (it is obviously penned by a female) is full of irreievaneics and what cynical people call “ sob .stuff,’ 1 should like to show her whore she has missed the point of my letter. Having carefully reread it, she will realise that 1 made no mention of last Friday’s street day. 1 was speaking of street days in general, whereas she picked on a particular one and made a great to-do about its worthiness. It was a worthy cause, I admit, but this system of going round the offices every week or so begging for money is altogether wrong, and is resented by the great majority of office workers. Factories are not worried in this way, so why should offices be? Clerks are no better paid than operatives, if as well. One of the" main arguments in my letter was that those people who are willing to make donations are perfectly able to do so in the streets, on their way to and from work, without being interrupted during actual working hours. “Observer” chose to ignore this undeniable fact, and attempted to draw a rod herring across the track of my arguments by introducing a string of irrelevancies. She makes the following statement :—“ In all my experience of street collecting this is the first time I have heard of anyone complaining of such a worthy object.” Apart from the fact that 1 did not utter a word against the worthiness of last Friday’s object, I am certain that unless “ Observer ” is stone deaf, or frequents the society of none but her fellow-collec-tors, "she must have heard scores of people complaining of the excessive number of street days held in Dunedin. If she worked in an office (not necessarily mine) she would soon realise that these day’s are not looked forward to as eagerly as she seems to imagine. “ Observer ” will probably be disappointed to hear that no woman, during the Great War, indulged at my expense in that contemptible form of feminine hysteria which she mentions—presenting white feathers to any men not in khaki. Neurotic women were not encouraged in our locality. Your correspondent refers to my remarks about “ good ladies.” With all due respect to her I must deny having made these remarks. I referred only to “good women.” This habit of calling themselves “ ladies ” seems to bo universal among the members of the weaker sex. One has only to scan your “situations wanted” column to realise this fact. Men. on the other hand, are modestly content to be “men.” Hoping that “ Observer ” will in future think twice before bearding hard-up business gentlemen in their lairs in search of money,—l am. etc., Hard-up Business Man. December 12.