There is a very common practical joke on fools’ day in the British metropolis: it consists in despatching a letter by an unlucky dupe, who is to wait for an answer. The answer is a second note, to a third person, “to send the fool farther.” A young surgeon, a greenhorn in practice, fresh from St. Bartholomew’s, his instruments unfleshed on his own account, and his surgery bottles full to repletion, was called a few years ago from the Strand to a patient in Newgate Street, very rich, named Dobbs. It was the First of April, and it was his first patient. The young Esculapius was ushered into the presence of the supposed patient, who was busy writing in his counting-house. The surgeon explained his errand, and Mr. Dobbs, having an excellent mercantile discernment, soon saw through the affair. He bowed and said, “It is a mistake, sir: my name is Dobbs, but I am, thank God, hale and hearty. It is my brother, the sugar-baker, on Fish Street Hill, that has sent for you, [carriage or horse he had none,] three-fourths of a mile farther.” He entered among the pyramids of snowy sweets, and found Mr. Dobbs, the sugar-baker, of Fish Street Hill, as hale as his brother of Newgate Street. The refiner of saccharine juice understood his brother’s note, stammered out a pretended apology for the mistake, and said he supposed, as the young man’s directions were to Mr. J. Dobbs, and not Mr. Jeffry Dobbs, that was intended; that his name was Jeffry, but his brother John, a third member of the family, and in his business, lived at Limehouse, whither he thought, if our surgeon proceeded, he would find the person he sought. An address was handed the young tourniquet at the extreme end of Limehouse, which address, it is needless to say, was false. What will not a surgeon do to obtain his first patient, and a rich one too? Away he posted to Limehouse, and soon found how far he had travelled for nothing. Tired and disappointed, and scheming vengeance on the authors of the hoax, he set off on his return home, cursing the Dobbs family every step he went. As he passed along Upper Shadwell, he saw a horse gallop furiously down Chamomile Street and fling its rider a heavy fall on the pavement. He ran and lifted the fallen man, whom he found insensible. He conveyed him to a shop hard by, bled him, and had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes. Suffice it to say that, on being conveyed home, our young surgeon attended him until he was restored to health; and so gratefully were his exertions received by the stranger, who was a rich East India merchant, far advanced in life, that he took him into his house as a medical attendant and friend, and ultimately left him the bulk of his property. Thus, out of an intended Fools’ Day hoax, by the inscrutable caprice of fortune, a frolic led its dupe to wealth. This anecdote, according to the London Athenæum, may be depended on as true, nothing in the story but the name adopted, to conceal the real actors in the drama, being fictitious.
A day of fooleries, the Huli Fest, is observed, also, among the Hindoos, attended with the like silly species of witticism.
By many it is believed that the term “all” is a corruption of auld or old, thereby making it originally “Old Fools’ Day,” in confirmation of which opinion the following observation is quoted from an ancient Roman calendar respecting the 1st of November:—“The feast of old fools is removed to this day.” The oldest almanacs extant, however, have it all (and not old) fools’ day. Besides the Roman “Saturnalia” and the Druidical rites, superstitions which the early Christians found in existence when they commenced their labors in England, was the Festum Fatuorum, or Fools’ Holiday, which was doubtless our present First of April. In some of the German classics frequent mention is made of the Aprilen Narr, so that even the Germans of the olden time understood how to practise their cunning April arts upon their neighbors quite as well as we of the present day.
Enough has been here quoted to prove that the custom is of very ancient existence; but the precise origin thereof remains undiscovered, and will have to be dug from some of the musty chronicles of gray antiquity. But, be the origin of the custom what it may, we cannot avoid the conclusion that it is one “more honored in the breach than in the observance.”
CARDS.
About the year 1390, cards were invented to divert Charles IV., then King of France, who was fallen into a melancholy disposition. That they were not in use before appears highly probable. 1st, Because no cards are to be seen in any paintings, sculpture, tapestry, &c. more ancient than the preceding period, but are represented in many works of ingenuity since that age. 2dly, No prohibitions relative to cards, by the king’s edicts, are mentioned; although some few years before, a most severe one was published, forbidding by name all manner of sports and pastimes, in order that the subjects might exercise themselves in shooting with bows and arrows and be in a condition to oppose the English. Now, it is not to be presumed that so luring a game as cards would have been omitted in the enumeration had they been in use. 3dly, In all the ecclesiastical canons prior to the same time, there occurs no mention of cards; although, twenty years after that date, card-playing was interdicted the clergy by a Gallican Synod. About the same time is found in the account-book of the king’s cofferer the following charge:—“Paid for a pack of painted leaves bought for the king’s amusement, three livres.” Printing and stamping being not then discovered, the cards were painted, which made them dear. Thence, in the above synodical canons, they are called pagillæ pictæ, painted little leaves. 4thly, About thirty years after this came a severe edict against cards in France, and another by Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, only permitting the ladies this pastime, pro spinilis, for pins and needles.
Of their designs.—The inventor proposed by the figures of the four suits, or colors, as the French call them, to represent the four states or classes of men in the kingdom. By the Cæsars (hearts) are meant the Gens de Chœur, choir-men, or ecclesiastics; and therefore the Spaniards, who certainly received the use of cards from the French, have copas or chalices instead of hearts. The nobility, or prime military part of the kingdom, are represented by the ends or points of lances, or pikes; and our ignorance of the meaning or resemblance of the figure induced us to call them spades. The Spaniards have espadas (swords) in lieu of pikes, which is of similar import. By diamonds are designated the order of citizens, merchants, and tradesmen, carraux, (square stone tiles, or the like.) The Spaniards have a coin dineros, which answers to it; and the Dutch call the French word carreaux, stieneen, stones and diamonds, from the form. Treste, the trefoil leaf, or clover grass, (corruptly called clubs,) alludes to husbandmen and peasants. How this suit came to be called clubs is not explained, unless, borrowing the game from the Spaniards, who have bastos (staves or clubs) instead of the trefoil, we gave the Spanish signification to the French figure.
The “history of the four kings,” which the French in drollery sometimes call “the cards,” is that of David, Alexander, Cæsar, and Charles, names which were, and still are, on the French cards. These respective names represent the four celebrated monarchies of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Franks under Charlemagne.
By the queens are intended Argine, Esther, Judith, and Pallas, (names retained in the French cards,) typical of birth, piety, fortitude, and wisdom, the qualifications residing in each person. “Argine” is an anagram for “Regina,” queen by descent.
By the knaves were designed the servants to knights, (for knave originally meant only servant; and in an old translation of the Bible, St. Paul is called the knave of Christ,) but French pages and valets, now indiscriminately used by various orders of persons, were formerly only allowed to persons of quality, esquires, (escuiers,) shield or armor bearers. Others fancy that the knights themselves were designed by those cards, because Hogier and Lahire, two names on the French cards, were famous knights at the time cards were supposed to be invented.