month was sacred to Venus. The first twenty days were given over to
feasts, games, and equestrian combats. On the 21st, which was regarded as
the birthday of Rome, the wine of the previous autumn was first tasted; on
the 25th, the ceremony of the Robigalia, for the averting of mildew, and
on the last three days came the "Dance of the Flowers."

The 1st of April has long been a day for the playing of practical jokes.
According to an old tradition, this custom had its origin in the belief
that it was on the first day of April that Noah sent his dove on its
fruitless search for evidence of the subsidence of the flood. The dove got
back without an olive-branch, but there is no evidence on which to base
the belief that Noah regarded the failure of the bird's mission as a joke.

Singularly enough, the great day for practical joking in Hindustan is
March 31.

It is usually in the month of April, too, that Easter falls. The word
"Easter" is of Saxon derivation. Among the Teutonic races, April was
called Ostermonath--the month of the east wind. Our Easter Sunday must be
between March 21 and April 25. It is regulated by the occurrence of the
paschal moon, or first full moon between the vernal equinox and fourteen
days afterward.

Though it has long been the custom to make Easter Day the occasion of the
celebration of the resurrection of Christ, there is no trace of such a
celebration in the New Testament or in the writings of the Apostolic
Fathers.

St. George's Day is the 23d of the month, and St. Mark's Eve, with its
superstition about those who were doomed to die, falls on the 24th.

A good type of the aggressiveness, independence, singleness of purpose,
and strength of character of the Aries people is the Rev. Dr. Charles H.
Parkhurst. Bismarck was an excellent illustration of the dogged
determination and fighting characteristics of the sign.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Scrap Book. Volume 1, No. 2, by Various

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