But it is not for one moment to be assumed that this is in any way a reflection upon the work done by the Hospital Saturday Association.
The members of the latter worked as hard as, if not harder than, ever before, their organisation was as thorough, and their large band of collectors comprised, as usual, ladies who were determined, for one day, to prove themselves the most expert beggars in the world.
The collectors are to be heartily congratulated on their achievement in securing so large a sum of money.
As a matter of fact, the collectors actually received more coins, but the coins were of less value than formerly.
The average Dunedin citizen, being a Scotchman and a cautious person, and having already experienced the storm and stress of four Hospital Saturdays, had developed a somewhat remarkable degree of cunning.
He had quite made up his mind to the fact that he must give in a worthy cause, and after due consideration, he had doubtless decided upon the amount that he would give; but he remembered that in previous years he had, more often than not, found himself headed off in every direction by cool, determined collectors, and not been granted release until he had produced and given away a coin.
So the five shillings formerly decided on had grown into ten and the helplessness and desperation of their late owner had grown accordingly.
"Experientia docet" - and on Friday afternoon and Saturday the five shillings were changed into pennies, and during Saturday their owner was able to go jauntily past sixty collectors, hearing, with the pleasant sensation of the man who is happy and charitable, their grateful thanks as they rattled his pennies in their boxes.
And that explains how no less than 33,161 pennies were given away on Saturday, and why, if the specie actually received was more, the total was less.
When the Hospital Saturday collection boxes were emptied on the bank counters some queer things came to light.
Most conspicuous of all was a collection of washers.
There were also buttons of many varieties, old stamps, the butt-end of postal notes, old metals, squashed coins, pieces of tin, and in one case a silvered halfpenny, which might easily have passed for a shilling.
- ODT 6.12.1909
