The ancient custom of April Fools’ Day jokes persists
‘‘It was a neatly-wrapped little tin box that was left by the postman at the Dominion Museum,’’ ran an article in the Manawatu Standard of April 10, 1909.
‘‘It was the kind of receptacle an enthusiastic entomologist might use for the forwarding of a precious spider or a valuable grub.
‘‘The curator [Mr A Hamilton] opened the little parcel with some curiosity and laughed when he lifted the lid. A small piece of paper was spread out inside, displaying this legend: No spiders in this, this time.’’
The curator then remembered that it was April Fools’ Day.
April 1, the annual half-day for pranks and jokes at a friend’s or stranger’s expense, has been documented for more than 100 years.
A writer in the Wanganui Herald of April 12, 1913, claimed loftily that April Fools’ Day was almost forgotten, ‘‘and the very isolated cases in which people keep up the practice of fooling others on the first of April is treated with the contemptuous smile held… for something ridiculously old-fashioned’’.
On April 11, 1903, Auckland’s pictorial NZ Observer published a series of caricatures by resident cartoonist William ‘‘Blo’’ Blomfield, which show Blo, as a grizzled old journalist [he was actually in his late 30s at the time] being sent a case of whisky – ‘‘12 bottles of the best’’ for his April 1 birthday.
The editor tells him: ‘‘Go easy, old chap. It’s April Fools’ Day…’’ However, the delighted Blo gets the editor to help him open the wooden box, only to find the bottles are full of water. ‘‘Well, I’ll be jiggered,’’ he exclaimed. ’’May the fellow who sent me this get water on the brain.’’
For 51 years, Blomfield worked at the Observer, drawing a fullpage tabloid cover cartoon and around eight smaller ones inside the paper every week. He died in Takapuna in 1938.
From London on April 3, 1926, a NZ Herald cable news item was headed: ‘‘Wireless Used in Hoax’’. It continued: ‘‘Listeners were warned from a broadcasting station late last evening to expect an important announcement just after midnight. They awaited the chimes of Big Ben, then heard a voice say: ‘‘It is now April the first. Good morning, April fools.’’
On April 1, 1927, the Evening Post reported: ‘‘There are still many who cannot let the first day of April pass without having fooled somebody. This morning a person informed a number of well-known businesspeople that some of their employees had been arrested for drunkenness…’’ Soon afterwards, the Mt Cook police station was besieged by victims of the joke, who had rushed to bail out their ‘‘intoxicated’’ workers.
Sometimes serious matters in print were tied to the importance of that fateful April date.
On Tuesday March 20, 1900 the Manawatu Standard’s editorial focused on premier Richard Seddon’s decision to close the Levin State Farm, established by the Department of Labour six years earlier to give older, unemployed men a chance to do agricultural work and learn rural skills.
‘‘The hands employed there have received notice to quit by the end of April, when work is scarce and they will find it rather difficult to shift for themselves,’’ ran the editorial.
Calling the older men ‘‘weary wayfarers, tired and torn with the stress of a hard struggle for existence,’’ the newspaper’s hardhitting article finished: ‘‘The Levin pensioners… are of little use to the body politic, and it is suggested that instead of being indignant at being turned out of house and home at the beginning of winter, they ought to be grateful at being spared the indignity of an eviction on April Fools’ Day, in commemoration of the fact they were living in a fool’s paradise’’.
On March 31, 1927, under a black heading: Struggling Mothers Who Might be Driven to the Streets, the NZ Truth declared: ‘‘The Family Allowances Act comes into force on April Fools’ Day. In some cases that date will be decidedly apropos.’’
The act, it pointed out, ‘‘doesn’t go far enough to reach the woman with a large family whose husband has cleared out and cannot be found. The act gives her the goby.’’ The newspaper gave the example of a hardworking, deserted wife who had four infant children to support, but couldn’t apply for monetary aid under the new act because her husband, not she, had to sign the application form. She was in a worse position than a widow, for whom both military and civil pensions were available.
‘‘In these days of rouged flappers, short skirts and winsome personalities,’’ Truth thundered, ‘‘no respectable married woman can answer for the whims of her husband, and if he clears out, whose fault may it be said to be? Unjust… and unfair legislation like this is precisely the sort of thing that sends even good women down to the shady paths of infamy, immorality and degradation’’.
The Feilding Star, Thursday April 10, 1907, told its readers of a lucky escape from ‘‘a rather cruel practical joke on a local resident’’.
This man and his wife had received an invitation to a social function, ostensibly to honour the couple before they left for a holiday trip. ‘‘The letter purported to be signed on behalf of the citizens by the town clerk.’’
On the morning of April 1, the old settler met the town clerk and happily thanked him for the invitation, only to be told the clerk knew nothing about the event – ‘‘and then remembered that it was April Fools’ Day’’.