In 1883, Standard Time was established.
The First Section was known as the Eastern, and covered all territory between the Atlantic Coast and a line drawn from Detroit, Michigan, to Charleston, South Carolina.
The Central Section included everything between the Detroit-Charleston line, and a line drawn from Bismarck, North Dakota, to the mouth of the Rio Grande River.
The Third Section, known as "Mountain Time," included the territory between the Bismarck-Rio Grande line and the western borders of Idaho, Utah, and Arizona.
The Pacific Time Section embraced everything west of the Mountain Time line, up to and including the Pacific coast.
There is a difference of just one hour between the sections. When it is 12 o'clock at Boston, Mass., or at New York City, it is 11 o'clock at Chicago, and at San Francisco 9 o'clock.
The changing from so-called Local or True Time to Standard Time required clocks at Boston to be set back 16 minutes; New York clocks to be set back 4 minutes; Detroit clocks to be set back 28 minutes; St. Louis clocks to be moved ahead one minute; and San Francisco clocks to be set ahead ten minutes.
Standard Time has been accepted by every State and by practically every city, although a very few cities and towns unprogressively hold to the former or True Time. The Canadian Pacific Railroad, which has the longest mileage of any railroad in the world, is run on what is known as the 24-Hour Time; that is, the faces of its clocks, instead of bearing the figures 1 to 12, run from 1 to 24 inclusive. The time-tables are rather confusing, as trains are billed to arrive and depart at 13:10, 16:14, 23:30, etc. This system appears to have only one advantage,—that it eliminates the use of A. M. and P. M. It is possible that it will be accepted elsewhere, and even generally, but not for the present.
Star Chamber.—A tribunal, made up of a committee of the King's Privy Council, instituted or revived in 1486. It was supposed to have almost unlimited powers and to be exempt from any rules or law. It had the right to inflict any form of punishment except death. The term is now applied to assemblies or committees or others who conduct their investigations and decide upon questions in secret.
Stars, Their Number