CRICKET COMEDY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21198, 2 December 1930, Page 10

CRICKET COMEDY.

COUNCILLOR DENIED MARTYRDOM. Cr George Hall, of Manchester, who was fined, with the alternative of prison, for playing cricket on Sunday, is not to go to gaol after all. The fine was £1 or 13 days, and Cr Hall was given 14 days in which to pay. This he vowed he would never do, and he had made all arrangements for going to prison. His friends, also, had made their own arrangements. They were to serenade him with a brass band, and Mr Frank Mailings, the tenor, well known in opera, oratorio and concerts, was to take a special concert party to the prison.

All in vain. The whole elaborate programme crumbled to pieces. For the fine was paid—by somebody else, THE STUNNING NEWS.

Cr Hall is far from enraptured by this -back-handed birthday .gift. The offence for which he was punished was cricket, but this decidedly was not. In fact, he. described it as “a mean and dirty trick.” It was only at noon on the day he was to have gone to prison that he learned that the fine had been paid. It had been whispered that this had been done, but Cr Hall indignantly denied this.

“ I have given instructions that no fine has to be paid for me,” be said, “ and no fine can be paid.” When he rang up' the police, however, the calm official reply came: “Your fine has been paid.” The councillor was staggered: “ I have broken the law,” he said, “ and I claim that I must go to prison.” The official was firm. It was their duty -only to collect the fine, and their position was that as the money was offered they accepted it, and that w.as an end of it.

There have been various reports as to the identity of the person who has thus snatched the. nimbus of martyrdom from the councillor’s brow. An alderman, an ex-Lord Mayor, and a platoon of city magistrates were variously impunged. It was learned, however, that the culprit was an innocent old lady who went tearfully to the court saying that she was one of Cr Hall’s greatest admirers in his crusade for Sunday games, and that she thought he ought to be at liberty to carry on his work.