The Star. FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1884.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5081, 15 August 1884, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1884.

Unrehearsed Stage Effects are usually provocative of no small degree of amusement. If these effects occur in the course of some heavy tragedy, their comical aspect is increased by reason of the strong contrast j and the " situation " that should have produced intense emotion elicits peals of laughter. On rare occasions it happens that the brotherhood of the stage become involved in hostilities, and that agressiveness or retaliation takes the form of a deliberate stick-up. The villain of the piece, perhaps, after his quietus has been administered in the most orthodox manner, declines to die. Instead of doing so, he sits bolt upright, and " takes a sight" at his retreating slayer. An incident of the sort is intensely funny — for the audience. The slayer in the tragedy doesn't as a rule appreciate the frra, for tlie simple reason tHat tlac laugb. is against him. There are, now and again, unrehearsed effects upon the political stage : one has occurred recently. In this case the villain was Mr Montgomery. The member for Akaroa had been the cause of an incalculable amount of mischief. He had talked treason in reference to the large landowners, and he had declared himself in favour of " insular separation." At any rate, the "Press said he had, which was of course the same thing ; and the Press ' decreed that his irrevocable doom was political death. The Press slew him accordingly. The announcement that the deed was done appeared on July J 2 last; it declared that not even the shadow of a name was left for his weak-minded friends j the cause of all the mischief had not a single follower left; Montgomery was snuffed out, and the Montgomery party would never more be heard of. The declaration closed with an imposition of " strict retirement and penitential silence" upon the nothing that was left. Perhaps there was a good deal of blatant rubbish in the declamation ; but then the "situation" was a telling one, and what more could be reasonably expected ? Nothing, truly, save that Mr Montgomery should die in the odour of decorum, as required by the exigencies of the piece. Unfortunately for the reputation of the drama and its author, i he didn't do so. He persisted not only in j sitting bolt upright, but in getting on to- ; his legs and performing a brilliant little piece of his own, entitled the " Akaroa Election Campaign." For a dead man — a man who had been declared to be dead as a herring, dead as one of the nails in old Marley's front door, ho was uncommonly lively. His reception was enthusiastic; his success complete. And the worst of it is, from the Press point of view, he has been unscrupulous enough to go on scoring successes, achieved in the sparking comedy of " Quis scjwabit," the joint composition of himself and Mr Macandrew, until he has taken a foremost rank in the profession. Of course the Press doesn't like this sort of thing a little bit ; but then the laugh happens to be against 'the. Press,