LOS ANGELES, Jul. 21 – Cult leader Charles Manson took a verbal skip at the establishment Monday in the Tate-Labianca murder trial as the prosecution exercised peremptory challenges delaying final jury selection.

Manson, 35, accused mastermind of the seven slayings, apparently became angered when he discovered a reporter for an underground weekly was sitting in the back row of the courtroom while other newsmen were closer to the bench.

“Shave your moustache and get a haircut — then you can sit with the rest of them,” Manson hollered.

Earlier, lawyers for all four defendants—Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins and Leslie Van Houten, stood in court and announced they would accept the 18 prospective jurors seated in the jury box.

A panel of 12 regular jurors was approved a week ago and the six jurors in question would be alternates to take the regulars’ places should any of the 12 became ill or forced to absent themselves from the trial.

However, deputy district attorneys Aaron Stovitz and Vincent Bugliosi went ahead with use of their allotment of 24 challenges under which any alternative could be dismissed without cause.

It was expected that process would require several more days with the trial’s opening statement probably coming next Monday.

In other developments, the defense subpoenaed a newspaper reporter in an effort to unearth the source of one of her stories which placed the slayings at a much later hour than the prosecution contends they took place.

The subpoena was served Mary Neiswender, a reporter for the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram. Mrs. Neiswender interviewed a neighbor of actress Sharon Tate last August and quoted him as saying he was awakened about 2 a.m. on Aug. 9 by shots and screams. The state is expected to contend the killings at the Tate mansion took place about 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 8.

Mrs. Neiswender said the neighbor asked that his name not be used and she declined to make his identity known. The subpoena directed her to appear in court Friday in a defense attempt to learn the identity of the man.