The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1874-12-31
NEW-YEAR'S.

make our New-Years salutatiOns In
rooms where winter is disguised by bal
my heat and the perfumes Of flowers,
and in houses where the last improve
ments of the nineteenth century have
wrought their miracles. will entertain
any doubt that the New-Year comes to
every one the world over on the 1st of
January, or will entertain any thought
on the subject as to how it is that we
happen to have New-Year's Day at all.
There are few of us who, writing on our
paper the new numerals, 1875, will
remember the golden-lettered tablet of
the Athenians on which they thought
thev had engraved the true solution of tie
problem of squaring the skyey circle, the
revolutions OF the heavenly bodies, with
the measurements of human duration,
of accommodating time to eternity; few
of us who will remember the DEGREES of
Romulus as to the days and months,
or the vigils of Numa in his grotto with
the nymph Egeria figuring at the same
great problem, or Caesar tamperlng
with the equinox, and changing the
name of the old sunny month t9ulntllls
to his own Julius, or even the old
Veronese physician who bequeathed the
result of all his learning to Pope Gre
cory, and gave us the calendar OF to-day,
which is Is to serve us very well till
the year 1900. We do not pause to re-
gard such things much. NewYear's
comes round regularly and of its own
motion on the 1st Of January. We have
generally supposed it was a divine
ordination; if not, then somebody else
has attended to all that, and we take it
for granted it is right.
But does New ears come for all the
world on the 1st of January! We are
but fragment Of the world: all Christ
endom is but section. When does the
New-Year of the Mohammedan come,
for instance-that nomad whose wander
ings cover far larger portion of the
globe than the sceptre of the true cross
can sway? It comes on the 18th of July,
dating from the hegira of Mohammed,
though, owing to the childish arrange
ment of the months, III which they are
reckoned merely from the new moon, 1T
must be as perpleNng as the Year OF
Confusion of the Julian calendar.
In truth, the variety Of New Years
Days, in one continent and another, is
almost boundless, and there are more
regular eras than there are months III
t1lG year. IutIS Id Ui1O cOHiol Oio3
which begins with the first new moon
following the autumnal equinox, and to
whose New Years Day belongs the tradi-
ton that it is the day OF Adams crea-
ton. and the one on~.which God holds
Judgment There is. safe- Egyptian era,-
which dates from the 29th of August,
as does the era of Diocletian, SO much
used by the early Christian writer's as
the Era of Martyrs, and still used by
the Copts and Abyssinians, who with
great and delightful precision have car
ried their astronomical skill SO far as to
be able to put their finger on the year
which may be written algebraically as
minus one, and have fixed the day of crea-
ton exactly 5493 years before our own
era begins. Then there are the eras of
Tyre, of Abraham, of the Seleucides,
which begin on different October days,
each a sort of Harvest Home, together
with the Persian era, which ushers In
the almost perfect year of the Parsees-
a year in which every day OF the month
has a separate name of It's own. Then
there is the Armenian New-Year-
a summer festival again; there are the
Chaldean, the Chinese, and the Japa-
nese, all belonging to February; while
the OQtlSlIllS uSSll w SO1ObANeC SiASAA
own NeW-Year on the 25th of March,
doing so in Germany as late as the ninth
century; and since we have adopted the
present era almost the only other era
that adheres TO the same month as our
own is the ancient Mexican, the wanton
destruction OF the monuments OF which,
and the determination OF the learned
men of the race by the barbarous
% iofA 10 Ia ffl1.-
| nation concerning the remarkable man
ner in which they reckoned time with an
| accuracy exceeding that OF the Europe
| an of the same age, and which would
seem, according to its extraordinary
coincidence, to nave been taught them
by the Tartar and AIongolian.
! With all this host of New-Iear S Days,
there were in old times very few people
who knew when they came, for we owe
that bit of knowledge te the almanac,
| and the almanac, was then an unknown
| quantity itself. The very first approach
to such thing was probably IN the Ro-
| man fash which were tablets inscribed
with the days OF the monthly festivals
and of the new moons. It was not til
so late as two hundred years before
| Christ that even these were publicly ex-
posed, the priests, VINO nao reserved &c
themselves the right of intercalatlng the
necessary days III the year wheneve,
| they pleased, having formerly been Ill
| the habit OF announcing the calends-
whence the word calendar-to suit thell
own private or political views. The al
manac was the legitimate successor OF
| of the tdst.; but whether the word Ii
| derived from the Arabic al mandch, tC
count, or from the Anglo-Saxon atnsO
noagi.t, a wooden billet on which Were
scored the phases of the moon, is still
a disputed question. There is some
balance of probability, though, in favor
of the former, not only from the ma
thematcal knowledge OF the old Arabs
but from the fact that the almanac still
retains certains Eastern features in com
! mon with the Persian and others of tha
quarter. Thus, to be more particular
SO late as in the time of King Charles I
the almanacs were crowded with as
| trologicM predictions concerning mel