The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-03-13

into western Europe many centuries
ago. The ancient Romans took delight
in many sorts Of practical jokes in
connection with their Feast Of the
Saturnalia and there are those who
declare that the first April Fool joke
was that one which Romulus and his
"early settlers in Rome played upon
the Sabines by inviting them to the
regular April First celebration in
honor of Neptune and then carrying
off by force the Sabine women.
For centuries the French have held
a Festival of Fools on April /, in
which "every kind of absurdity and in
decency was committed" Their term
for April Foollis poisson d'Avril,"
term which means, according to one
explanation, a young fish and there
fore fish easily caught. When Ma
poleon married Maria Louisa, Arch
duchess Of Austria, on April /, 1910.
it gave the waggish Parisians an excel
lent chance to whisper among them
selves that he was "un poisson d.
Avril." But the classic French April
Fool story is that Of young woman
who stole gold watch from the house
Of one friend and hid it in the house
of another friend. She then turned
the case over to the police. But they
were sadly lacking In the imagination
necessary to appreciate this joke. She
was arrested for the theft and the
judge, entering into the spirit of the
occasion, sentenced her to Jail for a
year with the remark that she be dis
charged on April the next year as
''un poisson d'Avril !" Another French
classic Is the escape on April /, 100,
from prison by the duke of Lorraine
and his wife, who shouted back to
their guards the French equivalent Of
april Fool!'
April Pooling has been prevalent in
Great Britain for centuries. There 1t
mostly took the form of sending inno-
cents upon Sleeveless errands." A
boy might be sent to the cobbler's for
"a pennyworth of his best stirrup oil''
and then be mighty amazed when the
angry shoemaker applied this "oil' to
his back. Or he might be dispatched
to the milk-vendor for "half a pint of
pigeons milk" to the booksellers for
"The Life and Adventures of Ewes
Mother" to the butcher shop for
meat auger" or to the bakery for "a
pie-stretcher."
In northern England and Scotland
this practice was called Hunting the
Gowk." An old couplet says:
ION the first day of Aprile
Hunt the Gowk another mile"
The word ''gowk" in reality means
cuckoo and was used metaphorically
for fool, which undoubtedly is the
origin of the modern slang phrase:
ITO knock a man cuckoo" There are
plenty of connecting threads among
all these words, "Gauch" in Teutonic
is a fool, whence we get our word
gawky, and "geac" in old Saxon was
cuckoo, whence is derived "geck,"
meaning one easily imposed upon. Re
member the words of Malvolio to
Olivia:
Why have you suffered me to be imprison'd
And made the most notorious geek" and
gull
That e'er invention played onf
Although April Fools day appears
to have ceased to challenge literary
wits, there was a time in England
when it brought forth observations
from such scholars as Joseph Addi-
son and that prolific and satiric writer
Jonathan Swift. Swift seems to have
entered into the spirit Of the day and
to have enjoyed the liberties granted
to the practical joker on April first.
He writes to Stella under date of
March 81, 1913, about jolly evening
spent with two good friends Gin con-
irving lie for the morrow"
One Of the commonest forms of April
Fool jokes during past years in this
country was the practice by newspa-
pers of printing on April 1 some excit-
ing story of an event which meyer hap
pened and not revealing the fact until
the reader came to the end Of the
yarn. There have been innumerable
variations Of this stunt, ranging from
.'scare" stories about the blowing up