Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-04-01
Old and Young Take Advan-
tage of Chance to Play Jokes.
CHILDREN IN THEIR GLORY
With No School Today. Youngsters
Have Time of Their Lives.
ORIGIN OF THE CUSTOM
Admitted to Be an Ancient One, Al
though Authorities Disagree as
to How It Began.

Despite the warnings sent out by the
Smithsonian Institution that this day %
all days is not day to cali up the Zoo
ana ask Mr.. r. \. Kuhn. the jokers
were working overtime. There was no
school today--this being Saturday. fact
which can be proved by the calendar.
there were about fifty thousand young
sters who took the keenest delight in en-
trapping tht rusty old passerby into
Kicking hats with bricks ensconced be-
meath their ancient domes. or picking up
pocketbooks filled with rubbish, or into
doing some other diguity-killing trick.
Out In Mount Pleasant aud Columbia
Heights the feature of the morning was
the drove of gullibles who went out 10
10th street bridge Ito see the tigers
washed in Piney branch. The tigers
are the bronze beauties recently placed
on the bridge there
Also despite the vigilance of the police
and health Office men there were many
pounds of April fool candy sold. There
were many men who answered telephone
calls only to hear a believing office boy
call him an April Fo-o-o-o-ol," The fire
department was on the lookout for the
very dangerous April fool trick OF turn
ing IN false alarms, a trick not limited
to the first day of April, much TO the
disgust of the fremen.
Custom an Old One.
This April fool business is an ancient
one. The London Public Adviser of
March IL. 1863, says the custom arose
from the mistake of Noah sending out
the dove before the water had abated.
on the first day of the month among
the Hebrews which answers to our LIST
OF April, and to perpetuate the memory
or TINS deifverance il was thought proper.
whoever forgot SO remarkable a circum-
stance, to punish them 10y sending them
upon some sleeveless errand similar TO
that Intellectual message upon which the
bird was sent by the patriarch.
The French term poison dAvri,
which some people have tried to twist
into 1.-THE April passion" still following
out the unpleasant reference to the meek
ing of Christ, is generally accepted to
mean exactly what il SAYS, IAN April
fish," meaning a fish easily caught, per-
haps, like the far-famed sucker, 50 pro-
life in births as to have a son or daugh-
ter born every minute.
One plausible conjecture ascribeS the
fooling custom to France, which nation
took the lead in changing New Year day
from March % to January L. With the
adoption of the reformed calendar in
1864, New Year day went to January I,
and only pretended gifts and mock cere-
monialS were made on April /. SO as to
make fools of those who had forgotten
the change.
In character April fools day is likenad
to the Roman Saturnalia. when the
classic gentlemen of the Appian Way ana
other long dead thoroughfares battered
each other with all sorts of pre-Renals-
sance slap stick humor.
The Day in India. -
The nearest thing to the American
April fool is the Hindu feast of He'll.
the last day of which falls on March Il
and breech clouted followers OF the east
ern gods go traipsing about the oriental
cities all sorts of odd fool errands.
April fools were heard of in England
for the first time. it seems, somewhere
olson and Swift. Addison in his clean
cut style condemned the custom. He saw
no fun in sending a person half mile
to a cobblers shop for a pennyworth of
strap oil. Swift seems to have loved il.
He tells in his journal to Stella" March
81. 1713. how he and DR.. Arbuthnot and
Lady Masham spent an evening getting
up a joke for April fools day. The trio
circulated a report that man named
Noble. who had been hanged. had come
TO life again and was to be seen eating
and drinking at an inn called the Black
Swan in Holborn.
Over i'm London people are just COM
TO see the joke in AN April fool
card issued April J. 1864. The card was
circulated in large Quantities, and adj
mitted people to fake ceremony of
washing some lions at the Tower OF Lon
don, Ambulance TO be 10y the white gate
only" Great lines OF London cabs and
four wheelers drove round and round
the tower looking for the white gate.
There is no white gate. London wits
are just beginning to see the joke. Haw.
Haw. Very clevah! Don't you know.