The Wichita daily eagle., 1896-03-08

George Hampton OF Waco town
ship and Frank Brown Of Park town
ship were in the city yesterday and
both on the same errand. The two
men married sisters, and the two sis
ters each presented their husbands
with a bouncing boy baby. There was
rejoicing, smoking, congratula tions
and so forth, concerning the two chill
dren, until the two families accident
ally discovered that these two Children
would be eight years of age before
they would have a birth day-the chill
dren being born on Saturday, Februa-
ry 20, and there will be no more Feb
ruary 90 until the 1904.
They thought the thing was a joke
but they left the question to a number
Of well known educators, who after
looking up a lot of history and other
data gave the two brother-in-laWs the
following brief setting out the reasons
why their children would be eight years
old before they would have a birthday:
THE occasional addition of day 10
! February in what is called leap
years, and the interruption of the regu-
lar recurrence of this addition, are alike
due to the circumstance that the year
| (the period of the earth's revolution
| round the sun. say from equinox to
equinoX) does not consist Of an exact
number of days. The calendar as re-
formed by julius Caesar nearly 1919
centuries ago made the year consist Of
365A days, the odd six hours being
gathered up, so to say, at the end of
every four years, and then added as a
| do RI ahrIIo "a
of the year is 365 days hours As
minutes and about 46 seconds, and the
year of the Julian calendar was thus
nearly liz minutes too long-an error
| amounting to day in about 12S years.
'In the year 325 the Council of Nice de
termined the date of Easter as the Sun
day on or coming next after the 21st OF
| March, the time Of the spring equinox,
| But as time went on the error of 11A
minutes was throwing the equinox, as
determined by astron omers, gradually
back, till by the sixteenth century it
came to the 11th of March. This led to
a reform under the direction of Pope
| Gregory XIII, resulting in what has
been named from him the Gregorian
calendar; that is now in universal use
| except in Russia.
ITO bring the astronomical and eccle-
| SldStlcal MODES TSChOHlUS llIlle lIlLO
approximate agreement, it was deter
mined, as the discrepancy amounted TO
a very little more than three days in
! 400 years, to drop three of the leap year
additional days in four centuries; and,
naturally, the years selected were what
may be called the century or two-ciph-
er years. Gregory accordingly gave
orders, by a decree issued in 1882, that
February should have % days in the
years 1900, 1000, 2400, etc, but only 2S in
the intermediate years.
Thus it happens that 1900 was not
| leap year, and 1900 will not be. The
year is still some twenty-six seconds
| too long, after this adjustment; but,
as that does not amount to quite a day
| in $500 years, it does not greatly con-
Germ US. Pope Gregory further de-
creed, in order to bring the equinox
| back to March 81, that the day follow
! ing October A, 1882, should be October
Is; and by an act of the British par
lament, the day following September
2. 1852, was declared to be October Il.
| This is what is known as the change
from the old Style TO New Style"
The boys were not happy, but they
went home with the hope in their breast
that their wives would understand the
typewriter explanation, hut they
| thought they would call March l, their