The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-19 00:00:00

THE PASCHAL FULL MOON.

The Times of Monday published the following
letter :

Sir,—Will you grant me a line in The Times to call atten-
tion to an error as to the date set down for Easter Sunday
this year? According to the Book of Common Prayer,
"Easter Day is always the first Sunday after the full moon
which happens upon or next after the 21st day of March;
and if the full moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter Day is
the Sunday after." Now, the first full moon after the 21st of
March will be on Saturday evening, the Eth of April at 7 39,
and consequently the day following, the 9th, should in strict-
ness be Easter Sunday, instead of the 16th of April, as fixed.
—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, EDWARD JACKMAN,
1, Great Coram-street, London.

On Tuesday,- The Times, in reply to the above,
gave the following :

Sir,—Mr. Jackman's letter is of a class that returns
periodically like certain comets. I remember having several
such letters turned over to me by Bishop Lonsdale, in 1846,
I think, when some of the clergy were equally troubled
about the misbehaviour of either the moon or the almanac-
makers in not conforming to the rules for the Easter moon in
the Prayer-book. Accordingly, I bestowed a special para-
graph upon them in the "Astronomy without mathematics,"
which I wrote for the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, of which, at this time of the year, I will only
trouble you with this short summary p. 149 of the sth
edition ; that unless the Paschal full-moon were fixed by
general rules, approximately right, we might sometimes be
driven to keep E Ister five weeks later at Exeter or Oxford
than in London —Yours obediently, THOMAS BECKETT.

And on Wednesday, The Times published the fol-
lowing :

Sir,—The date for Easter is fixed not by astronomical cal-
culations, but by certain rules given in the Act for egablish-
ing the new style of the calendar, of which rules the passage
quoted by your correspondent on Monday morning is in-
tended t ) be a summary.
The principles of calculation adopted in these rules, and
the reason why they were not so devised as to give the true
date for the full moon, form part of a curious history, which
was published many years ago by Professor de Morgan In the
"Companion to the Almanack."
- - - -

Among the proposals for amending the Rubrics now before
Convocation is one that the following words should be added
to the rule quoted by Mr. Jackman from the Book of Common
Prayer:—

_
"Note—That the full moon of this rule is not the full
moon of the heavens, but the 14th day of the moon of the
Ecclesiastical Calendar."

A full explanation (and no other explanation would be
clear) vr,ule be too long for your columns, and too long for
a Rubric in the Book of Common Prayer. But the above
words, if they should be adopted, would guard against the
very natural mistake of your correspondent of Monday
morning.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,

ALWYNE COMPTON.

NARROW ESCAPE OF AN EXPRESS TRAIN.—
Had it not been for the promptitude of a signalman a
most disastrous collision must have occurred to the
nine o'clock express from Paddington on Friday night
(the 11th). A goods train which preceded the express
by about fifteen minutes, broke in two between Castle.
hill and . Hanwell, and the driver proceeded on his
way leaving seven trucks behind. he signalman at
Hanwell, seeing no rear light when the train passed,
at once concluded that something was wrong, and
immediately blocked the line, and telegraphed to
Castle-hill and to Southall. He then walked down the
Wie until jie came to the trucks. Knowing that the
express was then due he rushed up the line, and, meet-
ing the train, managed to bring it to a standstill within
a. few yards of the trucks, and ao averted what must
hare been a most disastrous °Wagon,