“ APRIL FOOLS’ DAY ” IS AGAIN DULY OBSERVED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19034, 1 April 1930, Page 9

“ APRIL FOOLS’ DAY ” IS AGAIN DULY OBSERVED.

To-day was “ April Fools’ Day,” and among school children it was not allowed to pass without due observance, but it is doubtful if more than a handful of adults did anything to mark the occasion except to guard against the operations of others. The origin of the custom has been much disputed, and many theories have been suggested, but what seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on the old New Year’s Day, March 25, ended on April 1. This view gains support from the fact that the exact counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an immemorial custom in India. The festival of the spring equinox is there termed the feast of Huli, the last day of which is March 31. On that day the chief amusement is the befooling of people by sending them on fruitless errands. Though the first of April appears to have been anciently bbserved in Great Britain as a general festival, it was not apparently until the beginning of the eighteenth century that the making of “ April fools ” was a common custom. In Scotland, the custom was known as “ hunting the gowk,” i.e., the cuckoo, and April fools were “ April gowks,” the cuckoo being there, as in most lands, a thing of contempt.