MUGWHUMP MASSEY.

NZ Truth, Issue 97, 27 April 1907, Page 6

MUGWHUMP MASSEY.

A CHRISTCHURCH QUIBBLER.

Idiotic Inspectorial Interference.

Theatrical managers who have . played Christchurch during Munro's big eide show on the banks of uhe Avon have not enjoyed seasons of pleasure and profit, and the actions of 'iCity Council Inspector Massey and his hair-splitting interpretation of an asinine by-lav/ made by a weakkneed Council during the 'Frisco quake and fire period have not added to their joys. Massey, a saturnine, frog-like, smug-faced, smooth-spoken, individual, is like the mosquito, "insignificant, but , damned annoying," ' tout with all the power invested m him by a collection of city fathers, who must be blind not to sum him up on his phiz alone, his idiotic inspectoral interference with the lessees of theatres, and his wanton prosecution of them is a by-wqrd of the orofession. No manager who has eVer visited the City of th© Plains has escaped the pestifcrious prosecution Df this philandering jackanapes, and almost everyone has had to face the ibeak on a charge of over-crowding ;the Theatre Royal. This house , has 1 ibeen condemned for a year or two past, and the trouble m evening up ,the 'audience is entirely due to the entrance having b«c-n altered to an amateur design of Mepbisto Massey. On busy holiday nights' no less than seven entrances are used to get people into THE OLD BARN, and the management are always at their wits' end to transfer paying patrons from one part. of the house Jo the other to keep 'wijth m. the ov-er-crowding by-law •? The public never stnucak, and are generally as happy as larks, but Massey's mug is poked m, and backed up by two or three blue-bottles as -witnesses, ' who cordially hate the job, and wish Mugwhump m Hades ; the result is •a prosecution for over-crowding. These prosecutions have always been contested, and invariably failed, to the ohargin of Massey, who lias m.w played on the fears of the featherbrained city solons to the extent that he can now prosecute the manager of a theatre for allowing a person to stand within its precincts, no option being, allowed the presiding Magistrate to inflict a lesser fine than a/ fiver. The first, people to fall under this damnably insane local legislation were the popular Macmahons, who opened at the Theatre Royal on Easter Monday to a big house of happy playgoers, who must have been surprised to hear subsenuently that the management were being pilloried while they enjoyed themselves. As a result of allowing a few persons to stand 'behind ;the circle, and m the stalls

MASSEY SWOOPED DOWN on the management and issued a summons against them under the iniquitous by-law, but not content with assuring himself of a conviction and a fine of £5* he deliberately laid two charges for the same offence, Dne against brother Charlie and the other against brother Joe, with the result that both -were' hailed before the beak to answer a charge of being busimess-like. Magistrate Day evidently knows Massey's mug! and his miserable reputation, and though lie had no option but to fine Charles Macmahon the full amount, as it ,was not denied some people did stand, he promptly saw Massey's little game, dismissed the information a.eainst brother Joe, and thus defeated Massey's artful aims. Massey's memory must be muddled, or he would iiever carry on as he does, as most manager's supply himself and his •wife with the entree to the theatre, even on the most crowded nights, when paying patrons have been .turned away, and it has been

NO UNCOMMON SIGHT aot only to see people standing on the alley ways, but special chairs have been brought into requisition and plaoed m the: passage of the T)rsss Circle, and occupied by Mrs. Massey and her friend, who did not buy tickets at the door, but were on iihe. noble army of Ireelistexs. Did Massey then prosecute under the overcrowding by .---law ? .Of course not, •but he went to work to get a fiver clinch On future managements, and he' has now played it upon the Macmahons. That m the interests of public safety theatres should be controlled by reasonable local government by-laws every reasonable person admits 4 but of the three Christchurch inspectors Chief Muddler Massey is the only one who comes m conflict with visiting managers, and it is hard to imagine that zeal for public safety actuates him m his philandering with and pettifogging Persecutions of lessees of the ,Theatre Royal.