HOAX ON A HOSPITAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 30 December 1926, Page 3

HOAX ON A HOSPITAL.

♦ WORTHLESS £20,000 CHEQUE. An anonymous gift of £20,000 towards the rebuilding fund of the Western Ophthalmic Hospital, London; has proved to be a heartless hoax. The cheque was returned to the hospital marked ‘‘ no a ccount. ’ ’ Mr TT. AY. Burleigh, the lion, secretary, said that when he received the banker’s draft signed “A. Hammond,’’ and drawn on a Leeds branch of Lloyd’s Bank, there seemed no reason to doubt its genuine character. It was accordingly passed to the bank and a notification issued of its receipt. Pour days later their bankers wrote that the cheque had been passed to two branches of Lloyd’s Bank in Leeds, and at neither was there a customer of the name of Hammond, nor could the signature 'be identified as that of a customer. In these circumstances Mr Burleigh could only conclude that the document was a hoax until some explanation was afforded of the absence of any money to meet the cheque. Apart from the disappointment to all concerned in the rebuilding scheme, it was stated that the hospital had been placed in a. most embarrassing position. First, the impression had been created that the hospital had nearly all the money it required; and, secondly', a large number of gifts had been sent after the announcement of the big j donation, in the belief that only a relaI tively small sum was needed to complete the fund.