HOSPITAL SATURDAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14698, 4 December 1909, Page 7

HOSPITAL SATURDAY.

TlfU übiquity of the Hospital Saturday collector in the streets of city and suburbs to-day will furnish the public with a sufficient reminder of the opportunity that is afforded it, for generosity in assisting a number of our most valued and necessary philanthropic institutions and organisations. We give the community credit for needing no enlightenment a s to the nature of the claims that the Hospital, the St. John Ambulance Association, the Patients and Prisoners' Aid Society, the Victoria, Jubilee Convalescent Fund, tiie Karit-a.no Home, and the Department for Incurables at the benevolent Institution, which constitute the beneficiaries from the Hospital Saturday collection, have upon it , sympathy and support. The people of Duncd.,l have, as a whole, furnished liberal support- to these institutions in tne past, and we do not- doubt that a strong spirit of sympathy with the objects of the Hospital Saturday Association will be evinced in the streets today. It is to be recognised, however, that there are those who, while they may express themselves as highly favourable to the manifestation of charity in the abstract, aro personally content to regard it from a distance and to satisfy whatever sense of obligation they may have to play the Samaritan by putting their hands reluctantly in their pockets when a direct appeal is made to them. They may be cornjforted by the thought that the poor and suffering have friends; but it is I not too much to expect- from them, since they do not render personal service in assisting those who come within the sc-opo of tho operations of the institutions and organisations wo have named, that t-lioy should once a year at. least cheerfully respond to the invitation to allcav the respect they have for the good work done by others to take practical form. The Hospital

Saturday Association lias taxed its resources to raafo the collection to-day the success which wo hope it will be, and it now remains for the public to do its part and to enable the many workers engaged in what must be a. wearisome task to 'reap the harvest to which their disinterested labours and the cause they are espousing entitle them. Through the medium of four previous Hospital Saturday collections in Dtinedin a sum of over £3400 has been wised. Last year tlio town and the country districts responded with the splendid record of £1150. Perhaps it is not too mueli to hope that collectors and prospective givers will meet to-day on such excellent terms that a. now Dominion record will be established for an undertaking of this kind. In Melbourne a few weeks ago the Hospital Sunday collections realised £7732, and the movement which achieved such a result has raised a total sum of just on £'250,000 in the Victorian capital during the past thirty-six years. Duncdin, it is satisfactory to think, can, in proportion to population, point to equally creditable results during the time a. movement along similar linos has bean in operation here.