Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-03-28

This is the old standard joke of the village.
1t. has been played ever since silver dollars
were coined, and probably will be for many
years to come, for where is the boy not
strictly on guard, who could refrain from
picking up a dollar9 Aud it is wonderful!
how long a hot silver dollar will hold its heat.
A more innocent form of the same joke is to
drill hole through the dollar and nail it
firmly down; then silver over the heal of the
nail with some of the many cheap plating
fluids The finder nine times out Of ten will
grasp at the treasure and be-'leftn The
laugh is just good, and no fingers are
burnt
The "bricked hat has been played so often
that extra stratagem is required 1t is very
seldom anyhow THAI a man will pause long
enough to kick "A hat off the sidewalk, but to
boy derelict hat is "A temptation indeed.
1t sometimes proves cruel joke The boy
full of vigorous life and animal spirits swing
ing gayly along, comes to all innocent looking
old beaver and, pausing for a good draw
back, he launches a forty pound kick at the
target-alas! there is big and ragged stone
in it. For an instant he feels as if every bone
in his foot were splintered. The pain is aw-
full The jokers in ambush laugh, but the
victim cannot restrain his tears. Nowadays,
however, the jokers often kick the empty hat
around as the victim is coming in sight, and
only slip the stone under it in time to catch
him.
When the "W ashingtonian movement" was
sweeping the United States an ingenious dealer
invented what he called temperance wine
glass" Standing on the sideboard it looked
exactly like a handsome glass well filed with
ruby wine but when the guest turned it up
at his lips there was no flow and the loud
m \ rril ba
glass was double, the wine being between the
inner and outer portions. This hint set others
to work and very ingenious limitations were
produced by which the victim could be made
to believe that cake and wine, fruits and bis
cult were before him, but it was all Barme
cidal feaSt-the tempting vands were deli
cately painted porcelain or queensware. Bon
bons with cotton in them raised an inno-
cent laugh; but practical jokers preferre
those filled with red pepper 'lndian tur-
nips" used to be the great standby in the
west, and big bite of one would make the
victim feel rs if his tongue We're being pulled
out by the roots: but the plant is now SO rare
that many people never saw one. a truly
daboical contrivance was small pudding,
of which the principal Ingredient was mus
tard
In France the fun chiefly consists in send
ing people ON absurd errands, or sending
them messages which begin properly enough
but end in an atrocious sell Practical
jokes are there practically unknown. The
French call the victim a poisson d Avril"-
that is, fish of April or silly fish. The
Scotch call nm gowk, which means both
cuckoo and simpleton, and has been Ameri-
canized into gawk. In Germany he is called
"schaafokopf," or Sleeps head, while in all
eastern Europe much more derisive names
are applied, some of them, as well as the
jokes, being very coarse and even grossly OBJ
scene.
Now, as the custom has been common to
all Christian countries for over 1000 years,
scholars formerly agreed that it began in the
miracle plays or mysteries of the STARK ages.
1t was generally said to represent the send
ing about of Christ from Annas TO Caaphas
and from PLATE to Herod. BY and by, how
ever, traces of the custom Were discovered al