COURT SHAKEN BY LAUGHTER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3279, 26 July 1911, Page 7

COURT SHAKEN BY LAUGHTER.

MERRJMENT WHICH BECAME INFECTIVE.

When a jovial, red-faced man found himself Joking -cut on the world from the standpoint of the dock of the Tottenham Police Court the other day the ludicrous aspect of the affair struck him, and he began to laugh. He bad surveyed everybody about him with an expanding grin, and when he started to chuckle the court, too, became convinced that there must be something funny going forward. The policeman beside him bowed his head and placed a large hand before his convulsed features, the big sergeants looked from one to another and smiled in sympathy, the counsel grew very red about the neck and buried their fact® behind foolscap documents, and when the solemn visaged magistrate suddenly thawed, the defendant placed his hands on his sides and roared again, and the whole court joined in, as though seized by a common impulse to mirth. When they were quiet again, and the red-faced man had wiped the tears from his cheeks, it became known that the police had this against him, that he had come under the influence of intoxicating liquors. “Hot weather and holidays,” said the fat man, wrinkling his brows as though something was going to happen again. “Pay lialf-a-CTown,” said the magistrate growing stem. got it!” cried the goodnatured man, as though that was the best joke of all, and he was off again, with the whole court after liim.