The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-11-06
A New Time of Day.

The City Council at its meeting last even
ing, voted to adopt as standard public time
of the city the new railroad standard which
goes into effect on the 18th of the present
month. What this is, we have heretofore
fully explained in these columns. Simply
stated, it is that the railroads of the country
have mutually agreed to change the standard
time by which they run their trains so that
there shall be in use but five different
times in the country, the time in each section
varying from that in the section immedi-
ately East or West just one hour. Instead of
each city trying to keep the precise time of
Its own meridian, all the places between
established North and South lines will keep
the same time, so that for example at any
moment the time by the railroad clocks in
Portland, Boston and New York will pc ex-
actly the same. West of a certain North
and South line for distance of Is degrees
longitude, the time of all the railway
clocks will be an hour later. Most of the
large cities have determined to conform in
their public time to the standard to be
adopted by the railroads. The standard for
Portland and for the whole section of the
United States, East of the Alleghanies will
be within minute of the true time at Phil
adelphia. The sun will rise and set, it will
be noon and midnight,so some twenty minutes
later by the clock than heretofore.
If we could return to the ways Of our
fathers and give up railroads and telegraphs,
or move into the woods, we should not need
any exact standard of time Any cheap
clock would serve our purpose. 1t is be-
cause we have to keep appointments pune
tually that we need an accepted standard.
And by far the larger number of the APP
pointments which require such exactness
are with railroads, or with men in or from
distant points. The sun is our first stand
ard; but men have had to partially give him
up, clocks cannot be made to keep time with
him. Hence "mean time" had to beinvent-
ed, although our clocks thus get quarter of
an hour out from the sun alternately faster
and slower. But many communities have
determined to give up their own mean time.
By far the larger part of the cities of New
England, for example, have discarded their
respective local times in favor of the time
to be used by the railroads running through
them.
Heretofore Portland has not been in the
position of city all of whose roads need
time differing from her own local mean
time, and therefore she has found il conyen-
lent to hold her own in connection with
some of her railroads. But now all the
roads propose to give up both the Boston
and Portland time in favor of the 10Th meri-
dian time, which is exactly five hours be-
hind Greenwich mean time, and which will
be known as eastern time.n And Portland
will conform.
In the year 184S all England, together
with Scotland and Wales, adopted Green
witch mean time as standard. Some com
munites were thereby called upon to change
their clocks more than twenty minutes, and
many conservative people feared that trou-
Bile would follow. But the trouble never
came, and Great Britain uses uniform
Greenwich time throughout the Island.
This change which is to be made has been
opposed on varions grounds most of which
appear to us to be fauciful or unimportant
In comparison with the.obvious advantages.
But it is now certain that the experiment is
to be made, and it viii be well not to magni-
fy the inconveniencies if there are any real
ones. All that is needed is that individuals
should conform to the standard which the
pubic convenience seems to require. Let
all clocks and watches be set by the railroad
and public clocks and few will at the end of
week realize that there is anything unusu-
al in the conditions of their lives.