Student.
Answer.—The old Roman year contained but 355 days, divided into twelve lunar months, with an intercalary month thrown in at certain intervals, as became necessary, to atone for the fact that it requires more than twelve precise lunar months to make a year. This arrangement led to great confusion, and Julius Cæsar, in the year B. C. 46, remedied the trouble in large degree by the introduction of what is known as the Julian calendar, which regarded the year as composed of 365¼ days. This was a great improvement, but as a matter of fact the natural year contains 11 minutes 10 seconds less than 365¼ days, which difference amounts in a hundred years to 18 hours 36 minutes 40 seconds, or a little more than three-fourths of a day. As a consequence, between the year A. D. 325—when the Council of Nice established the rule for the determination of Easter Sunday—and the year 1582 there was found to be an accumulated error of ten days. Whereas the sun had crossed the equator at the vernal equinox of A. D. 325 on March 21, it crossed it in 1582, according to the Julian calendar, on March 11. Pope Gregory XIII., resolved on ending the confusion attendant upon this imperfection of the generally accepted calendar, ordained that what according to this mode of reckoning would have been Oct. 5, 1582, be reckoned as Oct. 15; and to prevent a repetition of the error he further ordained that every hundredth year should not be a leap year, excepting the year 2000 and every four hundredth year thereafter. Manifestly the omission of an entire day every four hundredth year would be too much by about one day, since, as above shown, the error in the Julian mode of reckoning amounts only to 18h. 36 min. 40 sec. in a hundred years, or about three days in four hundred years. This correction the Gregorian amendment effects by the rule above stated, which took the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 out of the list of leap years, and left the year 2,000 in that list. This leaves but the small difference of 36 min. and 40 sec. in a hundred years between the civil and natural years: which amounts to no more than twenty-two seconds a year, or about six hours in 1,000 years. In England the change from the old style of reckoning to this new style was not ordered until 1751, by which time the error that was but ten days in Gregory’s time had grown to eleven days. The order took effect in England and the Colonies as regarded all official dates and reckoning, in September, 1752, when eleven days were left out of the calendar by reckoning Sept. 3 as Sept. 14. This explains apparent discrepancies between authors who wrote in the latter half of the last and the early part of this century. For example, some early biographies of Washington say that he was born Feb. 11, others that he was born Feb. 11, O. S., or Feb. 22, N. S. Some biographical sketches of John Adams, Washington’s successor, declare that he was born Oct. 19, 1735, without indicating that this was according to the old reckoning, while others state that he was born Oct. 30.
LEGISLATION FOR THE PEOPLE.
Denver, Col.
Enumerate the acts passed since the Republicans have been in power which have served to benefit the people generally, and not some corporation or monopoly only. An elderly Democrat declares that the Republican party has never passed any such laws.
C. S. Holley.
Answer.—It is useless to waste words on men so ignorant or politically mendacious as “elderly Democrat.” The following memorandum is for the benefit of younger and fairer minded men. First of all there is the series of acts ending in the preservation of the Union and the emancipation of 4,000,000 men who were so far from being “monopolists” or holders of corporation shares that they were slaves; as they would be to-day had the Democrats remained in power. It would take columns to enumerate the laws brought forward by Republicans and enacted since they came into power which have immensely benefited the people at large, and not “only monopolies,” as you express it. Among these are the laws which have brought cheap postage and rapid postal transportation; the homestead and timber culture acts; the establishment of the only thoroughly secure national paper currency and general banking system this country has ever enjoyed; the resumption of specie payments in the face of Democratic and Greenbacker opposition; the maintenance of the public credit against rebellion in the South and the Democracy in the North, re-enforced subsequently by the Greenback party, both clamoring for total or partial repudiation; the abolition of all duties on tea and coffee; the establishment of State schools of agriculture and industrial science, endowed by government land grants; the promotion of American inventions, manufactures, and mining, until it is considered that this country leads the world in useful inventions, and the capital invested in its factories is nearly three times as great as it was in 1860, when the Republicans came into power—the number of hands employed being 2,738,885, or more than double as many; the amount paid in wages, more than two and a half times as much; the value of farms, forest, mine and other materials consumed (nearly all American) about three and a third times as much; and the value of the product almost three times as great. As some of the consequences of the above industrial legislation, the public lands are passing into the hands of the people in homesteads and timber culture claims alone at the rate of 8,000,000 acres a year; and the twenty years from 1860 to 1880 added as many farms to the cultivated domain of the country as all its previous history. Gold, notwithstanding all the products of our fields and mines, not only stopped flowing out of the country, as it had done during all our former history, but began to pour in from other lands, millions on millions. While throughout all the vast interior of the country, notwithstanding the marvelous multiplication of farms, farm products are higher than in 1860, and nearly all manufactured goods that enter into general consumption are lower. In the same brief period the assessed taxes on real estate and personal property have mounted from $12,084,560,005 to $16,902,993,543.
EARTHQUAKES.