It has been said that "what compound is to simple addition, so is Scotch to English April-fooling." The people living in Scotland are not content with making a neighbor believe some single piece of absurdity, but practice jokes upon him _ad infinitum_. Having found some unsuspecting person, the individual playing the joke sends him away with a letter to some friend residing two or three miles off, for the professed purpose of asking for some useful information, or requesting a loan of some article, while in reality the letter contains only the words:
"This is the first day of April, Hunt the gowk another mile."
The person to whom the letter is sent at once catches the idea of the person sending it, and informs the carrier with a very grave face that he is unable to grant his friend the favor asked, but if he will take a second note to Mr. So-and-so, he will get what was wanted. The obliging, yet unsuspecting carrier receives the note, and trudges off to the person designated, only to be treated by him in the same manner; and so he goes from one to another, until some one, taking pity on him, gives him a gentle hint of the trick that has been practiced upon him. A successful affair of this kind will furnish great amusement to an entire neighborhood for a week at a time, during which time the person who has been victimized can hardly show his face. The Scotch employ the term "gowk" to express a fool in general, but more especially an April fool; and among them the practice which we have described is called "hunting the gowk."
Sometimes the First of April has been employed by persons wishing to perpetrate an extensive joke upon society. Among those which have come to our knowledge the most remarkable one occurred in the city of London in 1860. Towards the close of March a large number of persons received through the post-office a card upon which the following was printed:
ANNUAL CEREMONY OF WASHING THE WHITE LIONS,
It is particularly requested that no gratuities be given to the wardens or their assistants."
To give the card an official appearance, there was a seal placed at one corner of it, marked by an inverted sixpence. There were but few persons receiving the cards who saw through the trick, and hence it was highly successful. As soon as the first streaks of gray were seen in the east, cabs began to rattle about Tower Hill, and continued to do so all that Sunday morning, vainly endeavoring to discover the "White Gate," the joke being that there was no such gate.