Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1880-04-15

. Afr. Hampson relates a curious tai
Off French lady who on April /, 1917
pocketed a watch in a friends hous
, and when charged with the fact befor
pagistrate, SAID it was u,e aooisso1
81 d d'4sril---ah April joke. On her de
{ nying that the watch)wasiriii. her pos
session, messenger waslsent to hel
apartmepts, who found it upon /:
chimn neypeice; urons whiclsthe lady
ysaid. she had made the, messenger :
poisson d'1wil. She was convicted
and imprisoned until April l, 1918
4 then to be discharged, as the magis-
I trate facetiously put it, like a poissoi
d1yrH. ..,.3
The custom of making fools on Tho
1st of April prevails among the
Swedes, it being alluded to in Toreen's
voya.ge to China. In Germany we
have the making Of an April-feol de,
scribed in the phrase Esnen gum Il prii
sc chicken. In Scotland the persons
sent on such errands were called cor
dies, messengers. In the north -ef
England persons thus imposed upon
are called "April geuks." A gouk or
gowk is properly a cuckoo, and is used
| metaphoricaliy in vulgar language for
a fool. The cuckoo is,indeed, every
where term of contempt Gaueh,
the Teutonic is rendered stultas, fool,
whence also our word coke. %: gawky,
In Scotland, upon April-day, they
have also the custom of ''hunting the
gowk" This is done by sending silly
people upon fools errands from place
to place by means Of a letter,in which
is written,
'.On the first day of April,
Hunt the gowk another mile"
There is in Noting hamshire, Eng
land, about a mile south of the viii
lage Of Gotham, au eminence wheron
stands a bush known as the ''Cuckoo
Bush," ard with it the following
strange legend is connected. The.
bush, however, does not claim to be
the original one, but was planted on
its site as memorial. The English
monarch King John,as the story goes,
was marching. toward Nottingham and
intended to pass through Gotham
meadow. The villagers believed that
the ground over which king passed
became forever afterward a public
road, and not being minded To part
with their meadow so cheaply, by
some means or other they prevented
the king from passing that way. In
censed at their proceedings, he sent
soon after to inquire the reason Of
their rudeness and lncivility, doubt
less intending TO punish them by fine
or otherwise. When they heard OF the
approach Of themesscngers they were
as anXlous to escape the consequence
of the monarch's dispIcasure as they
had been 10 save their meadow. w hat
time they bad for deliberation, or
what c0unsels they took, we are not
told, but when the kings servants ar
rived, they found some of the inhabi-
tants endeayoriug TO drown an eel in
the pond, some dragging their carts
and wagons to the TOPIC barn to
shade a wood from the suns rays,
some tuuibling cheeses down a bill in
til" expectation tina they would find
their way to No ting ham market, and
some employed in hedging in cuck-
90 that had pei ched upon a bush. In
short, they were all employed in such
manner as to convince the king s
officers that they were a village Of
fools, and consequently unworthy of
his majesty's notice. 1'hey,of course
having outwiLted the king, imagined
that they were wise. Hence arose
the saying, "the wise fools of Goth
am. Fuller says, alluding to this
story, and to some others to which
this gave rise. such as the Merry Iates
Of the Mad Hen Of Gotham, published
in the time of Henry VIII ,s'Gotham
doth breed as wise people as any
which causelessly laugh at their sim
plici'y." They have also other defen-
ders besides Fnller5 Some skeptlcal
poet, whose production has not inn
mortalized his name, wrote:
Or OF their eels in little pools, bae,sl4
gAlsh sloahfss; shsy: we're told, were
Nor of their carts drawn up on high,
| When Is ing Johns men were standing
by.
TO keep-thei. wood from browning.
aas- -@-- = =. s,s41 slAsA.
Nor of their cheese showed down the
e. hill - 1s-N -r~ ---.s.ss ~
|. Nor OF the cuckoo sitting STILL.
While it they hedyed round;
7 Such tafes OF them have long been
| Gu .tolddHA - ia JLlH Il
BY prattling boobies. young and old,
In drunken circles crowned. .s.e4 !.
"The fools are Z those 3 Who thitahee thitahee,t E. 60. 4
10 see the cuckoo bush. l trow,
The wood. the bare, the pools; -
For such are seen both here and
| SdBs fk there. I'll % eue~7t7osas ez.5z.T :
And passed by without a sneer j t-
| BY all but arrant FOOLS
Ha'psr's Weekly.
It is shown by recent count that
in Great Britain 2,1l3 individuals
hold notices. than 5000 acres OF
land -eachf and that their aggrEgafe
ownership was 3s,01s,54s acres.
As the entire acreage Of Great
Britain and Ireland is put at IT.