The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-04-01
APRIL FOOLS DAY.

To-day 6 an anniversary which brings with II
remembrance OF practical jokes played on unsus
picaous persons BY individuals who have nothing
oetter to do than TO amuse themselves at the exs
pense or their neighbors. April Fool Ii like
Mother Goose; 1t IL . household word, and has
lis festivals In every cline and In every land
where civilization has q footing This 10 the day
known to the Romans as the "Feast of Fools, }" or
Festc Stuttorunn, although IL was celebrated In
February by the conquerors OF the world.
People will be sent to-day on long errands for
pigeons milk, mares milk or strap oil, to tho
druggists for tulip powder and to the poulterers
for hens teeth, and silly fancies like these viii
help 70 beguile young people Of botn sexes
In France, although the practice OF ringing de0r.
bells and breaking door Knockers OF is unknown,
yet they have an April Fools Day, and the persox
who sustains the burden OF joke Is called q
poisson d'AUrH or "April mackereln-the latter
that swis tie Waters Il is ~; understood that Brian
BorOhime was one Of the most practical j0kers Of
his time, and many poor, belated Danish cheftain
showed his keen relish of run. n Good FRIDAY Apr
II lold style), would now be April In the calendar.
played the heaviest joke OF his life on the Danes at
COntarf, the battle resulting In the total expulsion
OF the Northern robbers from Ireland. Partly the
joke was against Brian, for he lost his life on that
day, his head having been ripped open by Danish
Twenty others might be given, every one stronger
than that preceding it. For instance one OF
the most accredited Is that on one occasion Louis
KILL held In strict watch, In the chateau OF Nanci,
prince OF Lorraine, who had the ill-lortune sert
Ously to offend him. The prisoner one night
escaped the notice 81 his guards and saved himself
on the LIST Of April by swimming across the river
Mouse, on which the people or Lorraine said thas
Louis had held q poisson In. his custody. 1t Is,
however probable that the custom OF giving q
man something to do, that we may afterwards
generously laugh at lin for his pains, has be-
ginning further back than the age Of Louis KILL,
and were 1t not that the corruption Of the
word passion into poisson is rather forced.
we should follow that derivation. BY this,
the mOckery Of Christ by the Jews Ii alluded
to, which is supposed to have happened in April.
The sending from Annas to Cataphas, from Caiaphaa
TO PLATE, from Plate to Herod, and from Herod
back again to Plate, Is well known and appears to
have had no other design than to give useless
trouble. Another sacred origin OF the custom,
without reference to the French name, is the mis-
take OF Noah, who sent the dove out OF the ark be-
fore the waters had abated on the first day OF tho
month among the Hebrews which answers to our
April To perpetuate the memory Of the deliver
8nce Of eight favored souls from the otherwise uni
versal destruction OF the human race, IL wad
thought afterwards at to punish those forgetting 1t
by sending them on some-to use the words Of the
Spectators landlady-sleevcieSs errand similar TO
that ineffectual message upon which the bird WAS
sent BY the patriarch.