Forty-seven Hats.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4337, 24 November 1882, Page 2

Forty-seven Hats.

The scene ia Hn a Paris Police Court. The prisoner at the .bar is charged with stealing a bat from a cafe. The com* plainant: " The defendant pretends that it was a mistake; but will the Court please look at this hat. lam perhaps the only man in Paris it would fit, for I have probably the biggest head in all the city. So much so that the hatter who has supplied me, father and son, for the last fortyvfive years, has a mould[madeexpressly for me Let the defendant put the hat on, and you will see that it cannot be his." Here the complaiuant banded to the judge a hat that would have fitted one of the colossal statues before the Palace of Versailles. The judge: "It is unnecessary, we can sea from here." The defendant: •' It is true that I should have discovered my mistake had I put on the hat, but I was holding it in my hand when Monsieur overtook me at the door of the cafe." The complainant: "Of course you were; had you put it on your head it would have dropped over your eyes, and you would not have been able to see your way out. That was the reason why you carried it in your hand." The defendant: "No. the reason was because it was so hot." The complainant: " But rain was pouring in torrents." The defoudant; "It was a warm raiot" TUe

judge (to the complainant) : " How came he to take your hat ?'' The complainant : it was at the cafe, where I have passed my erenings for the last thirty years, playing .at dominoes. My adversary had just put down the double six" -The judge: " Ne«-er mind what he played." The complainant: " But that is important. It was the double six that made me discover the theft. I was puzzled what to play, and while reflecting I raised my eyes from the game, and in the looking-glass before m? saw that my hat bad disappeared. I jumped up and asked the waiter what had become of it, and he answered that a stranger had just gone out with it in his hand. I rushed after him." The Judge : "That will do." The defendant: "I repeat that it was a mistake. I am incapable of stealing a hat." The com« plainant: "When he was brought back it was found that there was cot a Jiat too many in the cafe. He must have, there* fore, come bareheaded." The defendant: " Someone must have stolen mine." The Judge : " But how do you account for the 47 hats found at your lodgings?" The defendant: "Itis a proof that I do not

go bareheaded, when a- man has 47 bats." ... The Judge : " But they are all different sizes." The defendaut: "It is

thft. heat. It is well known that heat n^y^s things stretch. As for Monsieur's htftl-am very absent minded. I have no

head at all." The Tribunal evidently . thought the defendant had too many hats a man with no head, and sentenced

bim to six months' imprisonment.—Our Paris Letter.