Foreign News: Church Rats

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Like the poor, the church rats of Paris, who steal from parish poor boxes, have always been there; some have prospered enough to retire to houses in the suburbs. But recently their numbers and depredations have increased beyond tolerance.

To keep the rats within bounds, the Paris police set up traps. They checked on glue shops, where the thieves got materials with which to fish money from the church boxes. They watched bistros, where the thieves exchanged small coins for big bills.

Last week they caught a hitherto respected layman—gentle, white-mustached Henri Gotti, beadle of Sacré Coeur, who wore his plumed hat and carried his massive staff in parish processions. Each night, with francs filched from the almsbox, M. Gotti had slipped off to such fleshpots as the Moulin Rouge and Bal Tabarin. "Poor Gotti!" said worldly-wise parishioners. "Montmartre was too near the Sacré Coeur."

Another trapped rat was a female and a veteran of the species. Because it was her tenth arrest for pilfering church funds, she faced a sentence of life imprisonment. "Mon Dieu!" she remonstrated. "You police have no respect any more for religion."