THE ART OF HECKLING

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 116, 12 November 1935, Page 10

THE ART OF HECKLING

"A few people who go round to election meetings" for the purpose of heckling were llic subject of some deprecative remarks by Mr. Treadwell las: evening. We do not know of any history of heckling, nor when it was first put on record as an organised business: but if the heckler can be regai ded as the counterpart of the claqucr fapplauder), he probably dates back lo the very beginnings of public gatherings. It is no more iiigcniots to send someone to mock than lo send someone to applaud: and if, is is recorded, the hiring of persons to applaud dramatic performances was common in classical times, probably classical times were also acquainted with what we now

call the heckler. But there would be no hecklers present at a performance of the Emperor Nero, because the applause was supplied on such occasions by a chorus of 5000 soldiers. A little over a . century ago the professional applauders (claquers) of French theatres were under a leader who stationed them at strategic points throughout the audience, and whose forces included commissaircs (applauders who pounced on the good points of a play), rieurs (laughers at the jokes), and pleureurs (women who wept at throb moments). This elaborate organisation of mercenary approval may be held up as a model to the promoters of organised disapproval. Up to the present, it is not clear whether, in New Zealand election campaigns, the hecklers are amateur or professional; but it seems that they travel in patrols, for Mr. R. A. Wright records that some hecklers at a Karori meeting (men he had believed to be local residents) travelled back with him by tramcar to the city. That bit of evidence may not be conclusive, but it does seem that someone outside Karori is of opinion that the critical faculty of the local audiences needs sharpening.