Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-10-03
A NOVEL PROPOSITION.

The sooner sensible innovations sre
adopted the better, but it is well to be
sure, before the adoption, that they are
sensible. The proposal OF the Pennsylva-
MIA Railroad TO introduce uniform rail-
way time standard and to measure the day
by twenty.four enumerated hours, instead
of by twelve, is a very startling, and, in its
way, interesting suggestion. All the world
now looks at its watch to ascertain how
near or how far the sun happens to be
from the meridian over that particular
watch. The watch of a man in San Fran
cisco Is consequently much slower than the
watch of q man in Chicago, and twelve en-
tire hours slower than that of person at
the antipodes. The watch of to-day gives
the real time of the place for which it
is regulated. Trains, however, on any
given system of tracks must be run by
some common meridian. Owing to the
multiplicity of railway centers, at least
fifty rnerldians are now used as the
standards upon which American trains
run. Hence . person taking train ia
Boston for Washington must ascertain
whether his time table means 6 o'clock
by Boston time, by that of New
4 DIX fhllhU64pIia VI W Aoull L oO"
pie IL travelling soon discover the incon.
venience of the local meridian standard OF
time. Watches are of no assistance what
ever, because every mile travelled east or
west destroys their relative correctness.
The Pennsylvania plan proposes simply
to sweep away local meridian systems, and
the hsbit of trying to reckon by home
time, and to set up as the universal time
standard of the world that of Greenwich
observatory. If this should be done, a
Boston man reading timetable would
know the absolute instant at which train
containing his family leaves Chicago, and,
by referring to his watch, set by Green
witch time, he could ascertain the exact
position of the eastward. bound train at
suy given moment. At present, if he
wishes to telegraph to his wife who
is on a journey, ne must go through a
fussy computation of longitude and time,
based on the real time where he is, that
where she is, aud the distance in geograph-
ical miles between them. Under the pro-
posed system, every train advertised to
start at 10 o'clock, or % o'clock, would
roll out Of the station at the same instant !;
whereas, under the existing system, the
starting process of 10 o'clock trains is de-
ferred, as we see by mentally glaucing
westward, until the sun in his sedate course
rolls across the legal meridians. Great
advantages, no doubt, for travellers.
But there are very decided objections to
the plan. Dull people wonld never to
their dying day understand it, and some
people not dull would not master it easily.
1t would necessitate the division OF our
days into swenty.four hours each The
frat hour would begin as the sun crossed
the meridian Of Greenwich, and l o'clock
to men scattered along the continent would
meanvery different amounts of daylight and
darkness, instead of the same zeal and APP
parent amount of solar declination. People
VINO now rise regularly at o'clock in the
morning would find themselves awakening
a little after 4. NJ, or as it would be called
under the twenty-four hours system,
Fifteen o'clock" Nevertheless the sun
would already shed his beams, and early
rising would be, on paper, more com
mendable virtue than it is now. 1t may be
said, with perfect truth, that at present
our system OF time division is a personal,
local snd sel6sh one. Under the new re-
gime we should forget ourselves and our
LEGAL sunrises and sunsets, look at time as
marked for all men as one great commu-
nifty, and thereby gain the knowledge for
the first time OF where our days begin.
But on the other hand we should merely
have transferred our present difficulty
to another spot. Ii travelling were the
most important and common occu-
patton of men, it might be wise to
make the change, but it is not. For ninety
nine of every acts a man, woman or child
performs in the course of year, the local
time is more useful THAI a common stand
ard would be. AS compared with Green
wich, Boston time is four hours, forty-four
minutes and fourteen seconds slow. To
every person who stays in Boston it is
vastly easier and more natural to remark
that the days work begins at J o'clock and
school at 9. that dinner is at noon and
bedtime 10 o'clock, than to translate it
to Greenwich time. And if the person
goes from Boston to Chicago to live,
instead of accommodating himself to
the local custom by a single change of his
watch, he must learn from the beginning
the whole arrangement of the day. In
stead of beginning work at l6 minutes
past IA o'clock, ne does so at 9 minutes
past Is o'clock. And even were whole
hours only regarded, there would be great
confusion. The Pennsylvania Railroad
Company may treat the matter of travel as
the most important event in mans life, but
it is not so and no people will ever change
a habit which has always and everywhere
prevailed, in order 90 avoid some complica-
tion In the matter of starting and running
railroad trains Il Boston Advertiser.