The 20 Branches with the highest Collection.

WE publish below a table showing the twenty Branches which made the largest contributions to the Institution during the Branch financial year ending September 30th, 1927.

The total sum raised by these twenty Branches is £38,177. This is £3,200 more than in 1926, but £2,029 less than The first six towns are in the same order as in the previous year ; and of these six the City of London, Manchester and Glasgow and District all have larger contributions. The most noticeable increase is in the case of Glasgow which has contributed £1,122 more than in 1926.

Branch.

1, City of London * [ 2 Manchester and Salford i 3 Port of Liverpool .

4 Glasgow and District 5 Bradford and District .

6 Edinburgh, Leith and Granton | 7 Eastbourne f 8 City of Birmingham.

9 Leeds 10 Bristol 11 Poole, Bournemouth, etc. f 12 Southampton and District 13 City of Dublin 14 Isle of Wight j 15 Oxford 16 Aberdeen 17 Margate t 18 Douglas { 19 Hull a n d District . . . .

20 Sunderland and District County.

Population of Branch area.

London Lanes.

Lanes.

Lanark Yorks.

Edinburgh Sussex Warwickshire Yorks.

Glos.

Dorset Hants.

Dublin Hants.

Oxon.

Aberdeenshire Kent Isle of Man Yorks.

Durham j 1,258,854 955,000 1,060,000 394,700 512,000 62,000 919,438 600,000 377,061 146,000 220,000 431,000 94,000 57,100 187,997 46,475 26,000 325,000 170,000 Collection.

£ 9,601 4,499 3,660 3,512 1,900 1,596 1,489 1,319 1,105 1,094 1,011 1,003 974 950 781 779 747 739 733 685 Amount per head 0-86 0-92 0-79 1-15 0-75 0-34 0-44 0-70 1-09 0-54 3-29 1-00 0-54 0-96 Position last year.

3 4 5 6 9 7 20 8 15 11 10 13 12 17 16 * Fluctuating population, so that no calculation per head is possible.

t KesidenVpopulation. Thia is greatly increased by the influx of visitors all through the season.

in 1925. A higher contribution was needed to be among the first twenty than in 1926. In that year the twentieth Branch raised £599. Last year it raised £685. The Institution has 960 Branches.

Last year they raised approximately £102,700, so that the first twenty Branches, by raising £38,177, were responsible for well over a third of the total.

Two other towns continue to move steadily up the list. Eastbourne was twelfth in 1925, ninth in 1926, and is now seventh. Poole, Bournemouth, Wimborne and Christchurch has risen from eighteenth in 1925 to fifteenth in 1926 and eleventh in 1927. Leeds, on the other hand has, in one year, jumped from twentieth to ninth.

In the City of London with its flue- tuating population and the big seaside resorts, where there is a great influx of summer visitors, any calculation is impossible of the amount contributed per head. Among these places where it can be made, Oxford comes first with a contribution per head of just over Z d., and Bradford comes next with just over one penny per head. Belfast, which was 18th in 1926, falls out of the list for the first time since 1922, and Salisbury and District, which was 14th, and Worthing, which was 19th, are also no longer among the first twenty..