A COMEDY OF CRICKET

Southland Times, Issue 21192, 19 September 1930, Page 3

A COMEDY OF CRICKET

COUNCILLOR DENIED MARTYDOM. CHEATED OF PRISON BY A WOMAN. (From Our Correspondent.) London, August 8. Councillor George Hall, of Manchester, who a fortnight ago 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 thirteen days, and Councillor Hall was given fourteen days in which to pay. This he vowed he would never do, and he had made all arrangements for going to prison to-morrow. His friends, also, had made their own arrangements. They were to serenade him with a brass band on Sunday, and Mr Frank Mullings, the tenor, well known in opera, oratorio, and concerts, was to take a special concert party to the prison. All in vain. To-day, which, as it happens, is Councillor Hall’s birthday, the whole elaborate programme has crumbled to pieces. For the fine has been paid—by somebody else. Councillor 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 to-day that he learned that the fine had been paid. It had been whispered that this had been done yesterday, but Councillor Hall indignantly denied this. "I have given instructions that no fine has to be paid for me,” he said, “and no fine can be paid.” When he rang up the police, however, the calm official deply came: “Your fine was paid on- August 1.” 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 was 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 aiderman, an exLord Mayor, and a platoon of city magistrates were variously impugned. It was learned, however, that the culprit was an innocent old lady who went tearfully 7 to the court saying that she was one of Councillor 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. Councillor Hall, however, is not thus easily to be cheated out of his self-immola-tion. For on Sunday next he is going to Platt Fields, in company with another George Hall, there to engage in a spirited game of bowls, 21 up, for a prize. So if events take their appointed course there may perhaps be an opening for another old lady of benevolent purpose and commodious purse.