A SURPRISE.

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 89, 28 February 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SURPRISE.

Will anybody tell us where the custom, came from which makes everybody try to fool everybody on the Ist of April ? We saw a funny thing on that day. Did you ever pass by an old hat on the side-walk without giving it a kick? We do not believe such a thing ever happened. Well, a wag seized upon this characteristic, out of which to make a little amusement on "All Fools' Day." So he procured a boulder, weighing some twenty pounds or more, and laying it upon the side-walk, placed over it an ancient, weather-beaten hat. . The first person who passed that way was a jolly, rollicking young man, who went whistling " Jordan is a hard road to travel, and as he came opposite the hat, placed so temptingly in his way, he gave it a rousing kick, expecting, of course, to see it go •hivering into the middle of the street. But it; didn't move, and the kicker picked up his toe in both hands, hopped about, and became emphatic in his language, in a manner that made the perpetrator of the joke dodge round the corner. In a moment afterwards a gentleman came that way, with a cricket baton his shoulder, which he brought down with a swoop against the hat, expecting to see it take a hoist over the lamp-post on the adjacent corner. But it didn't ; .while the cricket bat, as it rung against the stone, flew half-way across the street, and the striker fell to dancing about, blowing his fingers as if they were cold, and using a good many words not to be found in any religious work of the day. We stayed long enough to see a dozen or more assaults perpetrated on that old hat that concealed the boulder, and every time the attacking party got the worst of the bargain. , '