The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1867-02-04

OLD AND New STYLE-HOw THE ELEVEN
DAYS CANE To BE DRoPPED.-Many per-
sons know that there is a difference Of
eleven days between Old and New Style
that is, that what three hundred years ago
would have been the Ist of January, is now
the l2th-but how this was brought about
is not so generally known. The following,
from the Cincinnati Commercial, will ex-
plain the matter:
How it was managed before the Christian
Era to bring the year round to its proper
beginning, and square the difference of
time, is not clear. Probably they fixed
upon a certain lunar revolution in connec-
ton with the seasons, and did not mind the
fractions of hours and minutes that alfiict-
ed the astronomers about the time Of julius
Caesar. That imperial Roman decree, on
the strength Of computations made by an
Alexandrian philosopher, that every fourth
year should consist of 366 days, to make
UP for the odd hours of the other three
years, and by this arrangement the addi-
tional day was conferred on February,
probably because it had the fewest days of
any month in the year.
But the calculation of the Alexandrian
was found to be at fault. A day every
fourth year was too much by eleven mi
nutes, ten seconds, and three-tenths of a
second-a small matter, you may think,
but of considerable account in the long run.
The natural time fellbehind the reckoning,
and how much the difference amounted to
after the lapse Of centuries is shown by a
single fact. From the time of the Council
of Nice, in 1926, when the vernal equinox
fell on the 2lst of March, Pope Gregory,
in 1882, discovered that the oyer-reckoning,
according to the Julian arrangement,
amounted to ten days, and brought the
venal equinox on the 18th March. And
so the error had to be corrected to har-
monte dates with the equinox. The Pope
decreed that the 9Th Of October that year
should be reckoned as the 18th, and to
keep the year go X" for the future (the
surplus being eighteen hours, thirty-seven
minutes and ten seconds in a century,
every centennial year that could not be
divided by four should not be bissextile,
thus dropping the extra day three times
every four hundred years. In countries
where the Pope's word was law, this method
of reckoning was adopted, and it is to be
regretted that it was not universally ac-
cepted. But the Protestants in those days
had as strong prejudices against the Roman
Pontiff as they have now, and did not take
his suggestion kindly. What business had
the Pope to NEEDLE with the year any
how2
But the regulation was founded upon
sound astronomical calculations, and is now
prevalent in all civilized countries except
Russia. Great Britain, however, did not
adopt it till 1852, and still retains the old
style in the accounts of her Majesty's trea-
sury. In 1852 the difference in reckoning
which Pope Gregory had discovered
amounted to eleven days, and SO an act
of Parliament was passed by virtue of
which the Sd of September of that year
was reckoned as the 14th. 1t is out OF
these changes in reckoning that what are
called the New Style and the Old Style
have risen-a difference that we still have
to observe if we have correspondence
at St. Petersburg or dealings with the
treasury Of Great Britain.