The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1877-03-28
Fourth Month Ounce .

The curious custom of joking on the
first of April, sending the ignorant or the
unweary OF fruitless errands for the sake
! of making them feel foolish and having
a laugh at them, prevails very widely in
the world, And whether you call the
victim ''Fourth month Ounce" an
april fool" ''ApriI fish, (as in France)
or an "April gowk" (as in Scotland, the
| object, to deceive him and laugh at him,
is everywhere the same.
The custom has been traced back for
ages; all through Europe, as far back as
the records go. The Feast of fools" is
mentioned as celebrated by the ancient
Romans In Asia the HindOOs have a
! festival, ending on the 31st of March,
called the "Huli festival, 4" in which they
play the same sort of first of April pranks
translated into Hindoo, at
the victim, and making him 'Huli
fool" 1t goes back even to Persia,
where it is supposed to have beginning,
in very ancient times, in the celebration
of spring, when their New Year begins.
How it came to be what we every
where find it, the wise men cannot agreed
The Hnany authorities are so divided,
that see no way but for us to accept
the custom as we find it, wherever we
may happen to be, and be careful not to
abuse it.
Some jokes are peculiar to particular
places. In England, where it is called
All Fools Day, one favorite joke is to
send the greenhorn to a bookseller to
buy the ''Life and Adventures of Ewes
Grandmother" or to cobbler to buy q
few cents worth Of "strap oil, strap
oil being, in the language of the shoe
making brotherhood, personal applica-
tion of the leather. The victim usually
gets good whipping with strap.
There was al old superstition in Eng
/ land that prayers to the Virgin at eight
o'clock on All Fools Day would be of
wonderful efficacy, and it is seriously
mentioned by grave writers OF old
days.
In Scotland the first of April fun it
called hunting the gowk, and consists
most often of sending a person to anoth-
er long way off, with a note which says,
Hunt the gowk another mile" The
recipient of the note gives him new
missive to still another, containing the
same words; and so the sport goes on,
/ till the victim remembers the day of the
month, and sits down to rest and think
about it.
In France, where the custom is very
ancient, the jokes are much the same;
but the victim is called an 'April fish,
because he is easily caught. In one part
of France there is a custom of eating a
certain kind of peas which grow there,
called p0is c7ti.;1tes. The joke there is to
send the peasants to certain convent to
ask for those peas, telling them that the
fathers are obliged to give some to every
one who com S on that day. The joke
is as much on the monks as on the peas
ants, for there is often a perfect rush of
applicants all day.
A more disagreeable custom prevails
in Lisbon on the first of April, when the
great object is to pour water on passers-
by, or, failing in that, to throw powder
in their faces. If both can be done, the
joke is happy.
l need not tell you the American styles
of joking: mailing piece of silver to the
sidewalk; tying a string to purse, and
jerking it away from greedy fingers;
leaving tempting-looking packages, filed
with sand, on. door-steps; frying dough-
nuts with an interlining of wool; putting
salt in the susarbowl, ETC. You know
too many already.
But this Gu stom, with others, common
in coarser and rougher times, is fast
diving out. Even now it is left almost
entirely to playful children and the
uneducated classes. This sentiment,
quoted from an English almanac of a
hundred years ago. will, I'm sure, meet
the approval of ''grown-ups'' of the nine
teenth century:
'But t is thing to be disputed,
IL Which is the greatest fool reputed,
! The one that innoeenty went,
Or he that him designedly sent.
81. Nicholas.