"DISGRACEFUL"

Northern Advocate, 6 October 1913, Page 5

"DISGRACEFUL"

STATE OF TOWN HALL

THE MAYOR FRANKLY DIS-

GUSTED.

"It is a disgrace" was the caustic ■comment of the Mayor this morniug when referring to the efcate of the Town Hall. He walked Chrouga tiie building in company with an "Advocate"' representative, making an official inspection. The place was in a deplorable condition. It had not been swept out since the concert of the Lyric Four on September 26th. The cloak rooms at the main entrance were abominally dirty. The wash basins were choked up with filth, empty. whisky bottles ■were lying albout, while the lavatories had not .been ireleased evidently for

some considerable time. There suem«d to be justification for the Mayors em ark. r ßut this is not all. The dress circle was in a state that calls for som? explanation. In addition to the litter of crumpled programmes, spilt lollies, nut shells and other "refuse" whteh is always .to be found after a public performance, the floor in the front of the circle was littered with dead matches, cigarette ends, and tobacco ashes. As smoking is not perm* ted in the circle —or anywhere else in the Town Hall—it is evident that this was not caused on the night of the recent concert. The only explanation forthcoming at the moment was by the Mayor "that the dress circle must he used by members o£ the Choral Union on rehearsal and practice nights." "It is altogether too bad," 'said Mr Steadman. "The Union only pays 10s •a night, and they are supposed to be fconfined to the stage and dressing rooms only." AN INTERESTING SPOT. ■"-' A visit to the supper room made the Mayor very angry. The place £had been converted into a paint shop for the purpose of preparing for the comic opera "Doris." The floor this morning was covered with paint of various colours. A ladder had been painted and laid on the floor, with the result that the floor had the imprint of the design. The walls are splashed with paint, and the kitchen benches and sink are in a shocking state, paint being splashed over everything, with paint pots, tins and all sorts of rubbish lying about. "We would'nt be able to clear up this place and put in back into its original condition for £5." remarked the Mayor.

On the stage and in the. dressing rooms behind a general untidi/ness .prevailed. "You see," said Mr Steadman, nthey have been using our new chairs for sawing timber on. Nice, isn't it?" He pointed to great scars of paint on the stage floor, and explained that some of the scenery for "Doris" had been painted in the hall and spread out on the new chairs for drying. Mr Steadman also found reason for complaint in that the main front door had been prized open by some enterprising individual'who had evidently been too impatient to wait for the caretaker to open it. "This sort of thing takes the heart out of one," said Mr Steadman, reviewing what he had seen. "We go to the expense of providing a fine hall'and in six months-time the place looks as if it had been up for years. Matches have even been struck on the -walls of the cloak rooms. 'It's a .-public institution,' we say, and the people take absolutely ao care of their own building." Referring to the use of the hall by the school teachers for their physix <:ai training course, Mr Steadman saiq- "they had acted like kids." Electric light glohes had been broken, and a portion of the wall at the side of the stage destroyed. One of the teachers had battered in the wail with a club and made an ugly hole which destroyed the appearance of the wall. He pointed to the white ceiling underneath the circle, where heavy black smudges had been made by the footballs used by the teachers in their exercises. "The whole thing is 'red hot,' he concluded. It really ss. AX EXPLANATION. Mr Gordon Johnson, stage manager for the "Doris" opera, informed an ""Advocate" representative this morn ; ng that the Town Hall Committee had granted the Choral Union the use of the Town Hall supper room for painting work. A water paint was used for all the scenery, and the Union would take care to leave the 0 room as clean as when they took it over. It was impossible to avoid getting some paint splashed on the floor. The paint came off easily when scrubbed with caustic, and of course the Union would bear the expense of fthe cleaning up process. As to the f:hairs being used for carpenters benches, he denied this, pointing out / that nearly the whole of the carpentry work had been done outside the hall altogether. The conveniences at the Town Hall, he said, were not nearly so good as those at the Theatre Royal, and the Union had had a lot o£ worry and trouble in making proper arrangements for the staging of their opera, which he predicted would be a great success.