LEPER’S GIFT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4222, 11 December 1939, Page 4

LEPER’S GIFT

TO RED CROSS SOCIETY. Mr P. J. Twomey, Hon. Secretary of the Makogai Leper Fund has received a unanimous request from the 619 lepers at Makogai Island, asking that £lOO of the money collected for them in New Zealand be handed to the Red Cross as a token of gratitude for what New Zealand has done to help them. The letter is signed by 12 patients representing the different communities resident on the Island. The Medical Superintendent, Dr C. J. Austin, in forwarding on this request said: “I do not know how you will regard their appeal, but I can assure you the patients will be very disappointed if you turn down their request. They are intensely loyal and are eagerly following the news over the air and in the papers. They arcnow hoping that you will give them the opportunity of feeling that they are contributing in a small way to the necessities of the Empire, and they would rather join in the New Zealand effort in this direction as a gesture of appreciation of the generosity of the New Zealand people. “I do not think that this offer of theirs will prejudice the success of future appeals—rather the reverse. It would be a very ungenerous criticism to suggest that it is evident that the patients have more money than they need and I cannot think that your subscribers would object to the patients using the money in this way, or wish to deprive the patients of their happiness and pride in being one with the New Zealands in this gift.”