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 30th September, 1928.

The total sum raised by these twenty Branches was £39,716. This is £1,539 more than in 1927, when the sum was £38,177, and £4,739 more than in 1926, but it is £490 less than in 1925, when £40,206 was contributed by the first twenty Branches. A higher contribution was needed to be among the first twenty than in 1927. In that year the twentieth Branch raised £685. Last year it raised £694.

The Institution has 1,050 Branches.

They raised last year approximately £109,000, so that the first twenty, by raising £39,716, were again responsible for well over a third of the total.

Of these twenty Branches, Belfast returns to the list after an absence of one year, and Newcastle-on-Tyne reappears for the first time since 1922.

The two Branches which have fallen out of the list this year are Oxford and Sunderland.

Dublin has risen no fewer than four places, being ninth as compared with thirteenth in the previous year ; and Douglas, Isle of Man, three places, being fifteenth instead of eighteenth.

There is no change in the first four places in the list, but Edinburgh has moved up to the fifth place, ousting Bradford.

The City of London, Manchester and Salford, and Liverpool and District have for years held the first three places undisputed, but Glasgow has so notably increased her contribution in the last two years that she threatens both Liverpool and Manchester. In the year 1926- 1927 Glasgow increased her contribution by over £1,000. Last year she again increased it by over £600. She is now less than £200 below Liverpool, and if she continues to make the same advance as in the two past years, she should, in 1929, stand next on the list to the City of London.

The City of London in the list is simply the City, with an area of a square mile and a day-time population of 365,000. In the City, with its fluctuating population, and in the big seaside resorts, where there is a great influx of summer visitors, any calculation of the amount contributed per head is impossible. Of the first twenty Branches, Bradford and Liverpool have the highest contributions per head, with just over one penny for each of their inhabitants, but many Branches which do not figure in the list have a higher per head contribution than any of the twenty, for, of course, the smaller the population the easier it is to get a high collection per head. Oxford, for example, though it has dropped out of the first twenty, contributed £661, which is equal to 2fd. from each of its 57,100 inhabitants ; Chester, with a contribution of £310, has given l|d. for each of its 47,000 inhabitants; Chipperfield (Herts.) has contributed £99, which, with 5,500 inhabitants, works out at 4d.

per head, while Lymm and Heatley (Cheshire), with a contribution of £140, has given no less than Q d. for each of its 5,300 inhabitants.

These Branches are not given as being necessarily the best. They have been selected simply in order to show what good work is being done in places which do not, and can hardly hope to, figure among the first twenty.

Branch.

1 City of London * . . . .

2 Manchester, Salford and District 3 Liverpool and District .

4 Glasgow and District .

5 Edinburgh, Leith and Granton 6 Bradford and District .

7 City of Birmingham .

9 City of Dublin . . . .

10 Poole, Bournemouth, etc. f 1 1 Bristol and District 12 Leeds and District 13 Belfast 14 Isle of Wight f 15 Douglasf 16 Southampton and District .

17 Margate t 18 Aberdeen 19 Hull a n d District . . . .

20 Newcastle-on-Tyne County.

London Lanes.

Lanes.

Lanark Edinburgh Yorks.

Warwickshire Dublin Dorset Glos.

Yorks.

Antrim Isle of Man Hants.

Kent Aberdeenshire Yorks.

Northumberland Population of Branch area.

1,279,000 950,000 1,060,000 512,000 394,700 919,438 66,634 431,000 146,164 377,061 600,000 415,141 94,146 27,604 220,000 46,475 187,997 325,000 290,674 Collection.

£ 9,161 4,362 4,343 4,148 1,979 1,941 1,514 1 397 1,208 1,186 1,143 1,124 874 876 778 778 775 736 699 694 Amount per head.

d.

0-82 1-10 0-94 0-93 1-18 0-40 0-67 0-72 0-44 0-51 0-85 0-94 0-52 0-57 Position last year.

1 2 3 4 6 5 8 13 11 10 9 14 18 12 17 16 19 Oxford . . . .

Sunderland and District 15 20 * Fluctuating population, so that no calculation per head is possible.

t Resident population. This is greatly increased by the influx of visitors all through the season..