Hastings displayed extraordinary resource

in meeting dangerous movements‘on the part of the Mahrattas, the Nizam of the Deccan, and Hyder Ali of Mysore, and to par the * meedful money was le than scrupulous in his treatment of the rulers of Benares and Oude. He thus gave good grounds for censure, and a motion for his recall was pa ed in the House of Commons. Fox’s India Bill was thrown out in 1783, but next year Pitt’s bill, establishing the board of control, pa ed, and Hastings resigned. He left India in 1785, and was impeached by Burke in 1786, being charged with acts of injustice and oppre ion, with maladministration, receiving of bribes, etc. This celebrated trial, in which Burke, Fox, and Sheridan thundered against him, began in 1788, and terminated in 1795 with his acquittal, but cost him his fortune. The company in 1796 settled on him an annuity of $20,000 a year, and lent him $250,000 for 18 years free of interest. He pa ed the remainder of his life in retirement at Day les ford, which he purchased. He - died in 1818. -; Hat, the principal head covering of the human family, distinguished from the cap or bonnet by having a brim around it. The hat, as a roomy brimmed head-covering, is the direct descendant of the petasus of the anecient Greeks. The use of felted hats became known in England about the period of the Norman conquest. The merchant in Chaucer’s Prologue to the ‘ Canterbury Tales” is described as having “on his hed a flaundrish bever hat. About the period of Queen Elizabeth beaver felts in many shapes became common, and for three centuries thereafter fine beaver hats, mostly dyed black, formed the head covering of the higher cla es in Great Britain. But now, though felt hats are the everyday wear of the community, there is no longer such a thing as a genuine beaver hat. The wearing of beaver hats was common in America far into the present century. They often lasted a man a lifetime, and were sometimes bequeathed by will to heirs, Interesting specimens can be seen in the old Boston State House. Hats at the present day are fashjoned of an endle variety of materials, and especially in the case of those worn by ladies, they are so diversified in form that they defy all definition. The manufacture of silk hats as a substitute for piled beavers was first attempted about 1810, but it was not till 1830 that silk Rlush hats were succe fully made. anufacture of straw hats forms an entirely distinct branch of the hat trade.