The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-02-11 00:00:00

THE TWENTY-NINTH OF FEBRUARY.

If or

Tho following la from an article entitled. It en=amble
Paya in February,'" in the reOPIG*6 Magazine:— -

---
Dear reader, were you burn on the 29th of Februaiy ?
Most likely you were not. Indeed, if I were a betting
man—which I am happy to say that I am hot, and
ahi.h I hope Ost you are not, and which, if you are
it, I reconamnd you to (XV(' to ho; aud which, if you
are not, I recommend you not to become (excuse the
long parenthesis, but it contains advice too good to be
ountted)—if, I say I were a feting man, I !should not
mind betting eai h of the readers of this magazine a
thoueand to one, all round, in tive-tound notes, that
he or she was not torn on the 29th of Februaly. I
should make a very good thing of the transaction if
everybody paid up, since I 'hold reed!, R 1,40,

every 1,000 that I pa ITIIdo I know this
13ecatise there are 365 days in an ordinary year, three
of which years come together, and then comes
Leap Year with 3; days. Well, I set to work and
do A little sum in simple addition after the following ,
fashion :—Ordinary year, 365 days; ordioary year,
365 ; ordinary year, 3t5; leap year, 366 ; total, 1,461.
Tuen I see that out of this period of four years, there
beirg 1 461 days on any one of which it is possille for
the resderti birthday to have fallen there ie orly ore
day by which he cvuld win, while I should have ail
the net on my side, and a fraction more for those horn
in the year 1800. Toe principle is a very eirnple one,
bat it is very sure ; and it is the same principle as that
on which all keepers of gambling tables go, whethcr
they spin a trumpery piece of paste•board for nuts at
a fair, or twirl an ivory ball on a roulette table in a
gilded saloon. They always have a certain p ircentaree
of chances on their own side beyond what they allow
to the other aide; and therefore they are sure to win
in the long run. .

Now, after this little esercitation en the philosophy
of gambling, let 119 return to our twenty.&nth of
February, which gave occasion to it. What is the lem
of a twenty-ninth of February, at all? Why shw 13
Lot all our years be 305 days loog ? Well, I know no
reason except the stubborn fact that they are not. We
do not make the year any more than we make the day
and the night; the earth makes the year by travelling
round the Ells, and it does not complete this journey in
any precise number of days. It takes 305 daye, 5 hours,
48 minutes, 49 seconds, and eeveu-tenths of a second
to do its werk. This comes so very near to 36.5 days
and a quarter (it only misses it by 11 minutes, 10
secouds, and three-tenths ..f a second) that we take
the year to be 365 days and a quarter long. But then
it would he very awkwari to begin the year 1809 as
the clock s'rik,s twelve for the tired .4 January ; thou
to begin 1870 as it strllces six o'clock in tlas morning;
to commence the year 1871 at twelve o'clock at I
noon; and the year 1872 at in in the evening,
which would bring the beginning of the year
1873 to the secoad of 'Tedium y, and so on; every-
thing growing more and Ili ire ens Iced as the years :
rolled on rel-mtleesly. We, therefore, very wisely
adapt our calculations to fit in with what the sun and
the earth de. as they will not arrange their proceedings
to tit in with our cab. Aglow. We let the odd frac-
tions of a day run on till they have completed a whole
one, and then we stick that day in bodily at the end
of poor little Fel miry, who must be somewhat proud
at helping his big brothers out of the mess into which
they had got, and setting things right again for them
with the sun, who is far too important a person to be
offended with impunity. But, even thus, February
does not set things quite right; like a great many
people who tries to set thiegs straight, he goes too far,
and makes the year a few minutes too long, in con-
sequence of which he has been required by the act of
Parliament (24 Geo. 11., c. 23) to give up his right
to his twenty-ninth day in the years 1800, 190,
2,100, and in every hundredth year which canted be
divided by 400 without remainder. And this moditi-
catioa of the general rule brings the almanac year ao
nearly to the real year that it would take Route them-
sands of years bet de 300 could find out the diff erosive ;
and then, if the world butte so long, we may safely
leave our posterity to set matters straight for them-
selves-