PRACTICAL JOKE AT A THEATRE.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXV, Issue 7146, 11 February 1892, Page 3

PRACTICAL JOKE AT A THEATRE.

. ■ . . ■» FINALE OF A LOVE fCBNB. Tub limits to the privileges of a visitor to a theatre have to ho defined from time to time, and the courts arc now and . again called upon to declare tho law on the subject.. At Melbourne recently the honorary magistrates at tho...District Court had to decide a case involving a nice point, A young man, Guy Henry Smith, attended a performance at the Hibernian Hall on December 17 given nby the Dagouet Amateur Dramatic Club." Ho waited till the audience had been moved by the patbelic situations in which the heroine had become entangled, and' by tho self •sacrifice of the hero, and then at the supremo moment when virtue triumphed over vice, he threw upon the Btago]a handsome bouquet, The gift was acknowledged with becoming grace by the onco injured but now, rehabilitated lady,' and the'play was proceeding to what is technically known ao the " tag" when there was a hitch. The hero had ' a violent fit of sneezing, and presently, as though an epidemio of influenza had seized the house, the heroine, the callboy, the scene-shifter, and the orchestm, from tho leader to the big drummer, followed suit, and even the villain was . not exempt from the effects nf the cayanns pepper with which .the flowers had been heavily sprinkled. • Tho climax to the meeting of the ■ lovers was, under the circumstances postponed, and the company Bought for the grower of the bouquet, who had discreetly fled. Next ' day, however, a summons was served on him for "insulting behaviour, with intent to provoke a breach of the peace," Mr Baxter, J.P., who sat as chairman on the bench, viewed Smith's conduct with much disfavour, and fined him £5 with £2 2s costs, or in default two months' imprisonment.