Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1913 — All Fools’ Day. [ARTICLE]

All Fools’ Day.

Whenrfreakish April lifts the latch all wits and wags consider themselves free to vent their nonsense,upon the victims whom they would fool their tricks. The gay Parisian calls such "April flSh;” in bonnie Scotland en that day they make merry “hunting the gowk,” whilst in England and this country a man keeps a sharp lookout lest he be caught at a disadvantage by ‘ the joker who glories in his smartness if he only can make some one look ridiculous. But it is just as well not to be too smart. The boomerang hah. a wicked habit of coming back. Silly as All Fools’ day custom may seem to the solemn, it haß an ancient ancestry. Its origin is obscure, but somewhere .from the far-off times when those old Romans fe|t the lilt of the vernal equinox, and went on the spree accordingly, comes this rollick which still trills forth its merry ditty in our streets. Deeper still, the calm, contemplative Hindu, for some reason or other, from time immemorial has gone a-fooling on the first of April. It was probably from France, whence all things vivacious come, that Europe got the unruly itch for turning this day into a comedy of errors.