Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-06-22

tempt; so it was decreed probably by
| Constantine the Great in 80 A. D., in
connection with the council of Nicaea.
that the Christian festival Easter
should be observed on the Sunday fol-
lowing the passover. and the other
movable feasts of the church were
made dependent on this. So the ele-
ment of fixed day of the week was
brought into the calculation.
In this yearZ32J-the vernal equinox
fell on March 81. and, if Caesars work
in establishing the Julian calendar had
only been correct. this event would have
happened on this date forever. But ma
ture seems to abhor simple ratios as she
was said TO abhor vacuum. Unfortu
nately for simplicity the year is not eX-
actly 365 days hours but about II
minutes II seconds less. So the inser
ton of the extra day in four years was
OVERRIDING the correction. as was known
even in the dark ages. but after the re-
vival of learning and the establishment
of obServatorieS it was commented on
in the council of Trent and was very
much discussed by mathematicians.
And by the middle of the sixteenth cen
fury the hundreds of small errors had
accumulated to ten days, so the vernal
equinox fell not ON the Dist, but on
the 18th, of March.
This was the condition of things
when, in 1872. Pope Gregory XIII. was
elected. He realized the glory that it
would be to his reign if this confusing
matter was settled. and so set a COM
IF lnr ieia rvnrl-
the problem. not only of rectifying the
old errors, but of providing rules to
prevent errors in the future. The hard
est part of the work was to fix the
movable church feasts without doing
violence to the traditions. That n good
deal could be said about the work is
evidenced by the book of 500 pages
written by ClaviuS, one of the compa-
ny. The result was that in 1881 pa
pal bull was issued declaring, among
other things, that in 1852 the day fol-
lowing Oct. should be called Oct. 10
and that centuries should not be leap
years unless divisible by 400.
Rulers and states that were then
Catholic responded TO the pope's re-
quest for acceptance of the reform. In
France the ten days were dropped aft
er Dec. 8. 1882: in Catholic Germany
the change was made in 1884, but the
Protestant states delayed until Feb.
10 (March II, 1000 In Switzerland and
Poland there was such resistance made
that the troops were necessary to sup
press 1T.
The change was long delayed In Prot
estant England, which would not will
ingIy accept an alleged reform due to
pope that had encouraged the ar
mazda. But the need of the uniformity
among neighboring states was too
great, and in 1751 Lord Chesterfield iu-
troduced into parliament bill for the
reform of the calendar. Some details
of the law may be quoted from maya
zine of September, 1852: ''Sept. IL
This day the GregOrian style took place
in all Europe, Asia, Africa and Amer
lea. This day, had not this act passed.
would have been the Sd of September,
but it was now reckoned the 14th, elev-
en- nominal days being omitted. Every
fourth year will be bissextile, or leap
year, until 1900. which will be a COM
mon year of 365 days, but 1904 will be
a leap year. Easter and the movable
feasts thereon depending are to be
reckoned according to the new tables
prefixed to the act of parliament All
the fixed feast days are to be
kept on the same nominal day as here
tofore- Payment of rent notes.
tire attainment of majority or expira-
ton of apprenticeship shall
not be accelerated hereby. If
servants wages are usually paid at