The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-09-11
RECKONING TIME.
THE Day BEGINS AT SUNSET IN
MOHOMETAN COUNTRIES.
Very Good Time In Africa, where There
is Telegraphic Communication with
Greenwich.

The ordinary method of reckoning
time In Mahometan countries is from
sunset to sunset. Twelve o'clock Is at
sunset, and this is the beginning OF the
day. Two periods of twelve hours then
pass till the next sunset, whereupon eV-
erybody sets his watch, if he has one,
backward or forward, according to the
season. OF course, accurate time is I'M
possible under such system. The tel
egraphs and railroads in Syria, for ex-
ample, keep anything but exact time,
though it might be procured from the
observatory at Beyrout, which issues its
mean time. In Teheran, Persia, mid
day gun is fired by the time shown on a
dial, and this in spite Of the fact that
the correct local mean time might be
procured at the telegraph office which
is regulated daily by time signal from
Greenwich and is the time standard for
all the Geographic business. But the
merchants and the street car company
keep gun time, and the railroad trains
do not seem to require a time table at
all, as they seldom start until full or
required to start by a government or
der.
There are out of the way parts of the
world that keep very good time, be-
cause their clocks are regulated by tel
egraph from Greenwich and then the
Greenwich mean time is reduced to To-
cal time, according to the longitude diff
fereno6s. Thus, at Lagos and the Gold
Coast, West Africa, the local time is
checked daily by telegraph from Green
witch, and transmitted to all telegraph
offices In the colonies. The time at
Acera is only forty-six seconds slower
than that at Greenwich, and is the
time used throughout the Gold Coast.
Most any sort of time is kept in Chi
na AS a rule, the Chinese use an APP
parent sun time, obtained from sun di-
ais. The foreigners at the ports on the
coast use an approximate local time
calculated from the Shanghai time, sup
piled by the telegraph companies In
the great city of Tien-Tsin with mil
lion inhabitants, the time is determined
by the municipal chronometer, which is
the town hall clock. 1t Is supposed to
be regulated every Saturday, when the
community may set their watches, but
1t has been known to be in error at least
three minutes.
THE VAGARIEs OF COLOMBIAN
TIME.
Last December was the time when all
the towns in Colombia were expected,
thereafter, to use the time of Bogota,
the capital. With this responsibility
upon them, it is hoped that the public
clocks of that city will improve in their
TO be Celebrated at Fort Griswod
this morning.
time keeping for visitors at Bogota say
1t is nothing unusual for the public
clocks to disagree by fully quarter of
an hour.
In India, the standard time for the
whole of the peninsula is the mean
time of the Madras observatory, and
this time is used on through lines of
railroad, and in recording the time of
sending kilograms to foreign countries
Local time is, however, used in most
towns and villages, and it is announced
by clocks striking, gongs, bells and
guns, the signals being given from
churches, treasury buildings, forts and
telegraph offices. The local CLOCKS are
set daily by the time telegraphed from
Madras, and each telegraph office has
closely printed table filling about fifty
Madras and local time for all the gov
eminent telegraph offices in India.
Not a few countries constantly use
two standards of time. This is not
troublesome at all when we consider
that, before the adoption of the hour
zones, the railroads across our own
continent employed about seventy
standards of time in making UP their
tnIn o,Is-
throughout Spain use Madrid time, but
for all other purposes the local time Is
determined by the meridian of each To-
cality. Throughout Russia st. Peters
burg time is used for Geographic pur-
poses, and each place has its own local
time besides. In Portugal the country
towns keep their local time very rough
ly, but Lisbon and the railroad and tel
egraph service have the time of the
Tapada royal observatory. There is
considerable confusion in the Neither.
lands and If ones watch does not agree
with the town clocks as he travels
through the land it doesn't follow that
he has a poor time-keeper. In the rail-
road stations, telegraph and post offices
the exact time of the Greenwich obser-
yatory will be found. In many towns
''N'
about twenty minutes faster than reli-
able clocks in many other towns that
use Greenwich time, and still other
towns use their own local time so the
Netherlands do not lack for variety in
time standards.
Every place in Newfoundland uses st.
Johns time for all purposes, excepting
Hearts Content which has special
privileges as a cable station. For local
j purposes this little town employs local
time. Every day it receives a signal
from London giving the Greenwich
time. and as the difference in time be-
tween the two points is three hours,
thirty-three minutes and thirty-three
seconds, it is only necessary to keep
the local clocks that much slow on
Greenwich time to have the exact local
time. But in the cable office all for
eirn business is transmitted with
Greenwich time
THE STANDARD IN ENGLAND.
In Great Britain Greenwich mean
time is the standard, and is used for all
nurnoses nearly everywhere. Among
the few exceptions is the city OF can
terhl1rv. which uses a time about four