Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1880-04-15
gelisfellausuns @eadina.

LEAP YEARs.-A subscriber has asked US
why 1900 will not be leap year, and we
make the following explanation, which, we
hope, is sufficiently clear: The earth, as
matter of fact, completes her full orbit around
the sun in three hundred and sixty-fve days,
five hours, eleven minutes and ten and thirty
eight hundredths seconds. That is the time
she consumes in getting back exactly to where
she was the year before, and that time con-
stitutes the year. When Julius Cesar
stopped fighting and came to look after his
affairs in Rome, he found the year very far
wrong, the seasons out of fix and things gen.
orally awry. And while he was much occu-
pied with other concerns, he did not belong
to the old set who thought that "time was
made for slaves" but, on the contrary, great
as he was in battle, in the forum, as an ora
tor and all that, he busted himself in getting
the seasons right and undertook to keep them
straight thereafter for all time. To do this,
instead of going along at the old rate of
three hundred and sixty-6ve days to the year,
he added quarter of day to each year,
making one full day in every four years,
which extra day has been assigned to Feb
ruary, and we call it February 29th. But
then it is plain that Caesar slipped up, because
he gave to every four years forty-four min.
utes and forty.one and ffty.two hundredtbs
seconds too much, and if that thing was al
lowed to 20 along uncorrected, the earth in
hundred years would be nearly twenty hours
ahead of time. There is an accuracy of
twenty hours in every century, if we allow
three hundred and sixty.6ve and one-fourlh
days to the year. To correct this, one leap
year day, of February 29th is omitted in
every century, and the particular year fixed
upon to be robbed of its extra day is the
century year. So, generally, years divsible
by one hundred, are not leap years. We
say, generally, because, leaving out full
year, when the correction to be made is only
twenty hours, itself works an error to correct
which and bring the earth up to time again,
an allowance is made of one day every four
hundred years. So that the rule for leap
years may be stated this way: Every fourth
is leap year, except century years; and
every fourth century year is leap year
Thus 1900 was leap year; not so l7OO,
1900 and 1900. Two thousand will be, as we
shall all find out, if we live to see it.
FREAKS OF ACcIDENT.-Strange mis-.
chances, with fatal results, are happening
daily all over the country. A Boston butch
er ran against knife that lay on block,
severed an artery, and bled to death. In
New York man, fastening by meat stand,
had his eye caught and torn out by tenter-
hook fastened to an awning post. A Denver
woman caught her foot in frog, and could
not extricate it before train ran over her.
A horse kicked d Michigan boy into deep
well, where he was drowned A Vermont
farmer sneezed while holding a straw in his
mouth, drew it into his lungs, and choked to
death. In Nashville shoe flew off the foot
of kicking mule, and fractured the skull Of
baby. While standing on his head on the
top of high fence post, boy fell into tub
of boiling water. and was fatally scalded. An
Oregon girl swallowed her engagement ring,
and lived only week afterwards. A stone,
thrown by play.fellow, broke glass from
which St. Louis boy was drinking driving
some of the pieces down his throat, and he
ded in few days in great agony. Looking
up to watch the fight of an arrow, Nash
vile woman did not see it descending directly
over her head, and the sharp metal point
penetrated her brain through one of her eyes,
killing her instantly. In Ohio, a 6veyear-
old boy went to feed the pigs; the pen was
furnished with sliding door, moving up and
down, which, as he ppked his head in, sud-
denly fell on his neck, strangling him. A
bachelor in Philadelphia met with a curious
death; he held button in his mouth while
threading needle, and accidentally swal-
lowed it, and it so lodged in his throat as to
result fatally In Cincinnati, recently,
young man was leaning upon his gun, watch
ing game of baseball, when foul ball so
struck the hammer as to discharge the gun,
shooting him in the forehead and killing him
on the spot. A few days since a boy in
Providence was playing with an umbrella
handle, and stumbling over it it pierced his
eye, causing death in few hours.
OLIVE LoGAN's ADVICE TO GIRLs-A
woman's safeguard is to keep a mans hand
n II.