The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-11-25

Fantastic though it may sound. it is
possible that before long an act of par
lament may be passed giving the pub
lie an extra 210 hours of daylight every
year. To do this it is not necessary to
NEEDLE with the working OF the uni
verse, though one might think so at
first
The originator of the wonderful
scheme is Mr.. William Willett, the well
known builder, and the theory is so
simple that there seems no reason why
it should not be brought into operation
He first dropped his proposal like
bombshell at meeting of learned men
in London. Every one scoffed, but
since then most of them have grown
quite enthusiastic about it.
The sun shines for a long time every
morning in summer before most people
get up and it is pointed out that this is
all waste daylight. The average NOR
tai stays in bed until about o'clock
because everybody else does. The only
way to remedy the matter is to take
time by the fOrelock as it has never
been handled before and turn it round
bodily TO fit the seasons.
If the new regime begins, the stand
ard of time will be advanced about an
hour and a half in April and it will be
put back in September. when the sun
rises later.
There is to be no sudden jerking of
the time machine; everything will be
gradual, and, as every one will do the
same, no one will notice the change.
At O'Clock on each of the four Sun
day mornings in April the clock is to
be put on twenty minutes. the reverse
operation being made, equally grad
ually, in the autumn.
Surely no one ever dreamed of taking
such liberties with an ancient institu-
ton. There is something almost lu-
dicrous about the idea. It is only when
one realizes the wonderful effect it
would have that the sound common
sense behind the proposition becomes
apparent.
Instead of taking our recreation in
the dark, as we do now, we shall have
the greater part of the afternoon TO
amuse ourselves in. The man who, I'M
der the present system, leaves his work
at 3 p. m. will go off when the light is
the same as it is now at $40 because
he started work at $40 a. m. instead
of $3.50.
Instead of rubbing his eyes and be-
ginning to dress at g a. m, he will do
it at $40 because the altered clock told
him it was time to go to bed at $40
instead of II.
OF course, though it was only $40 in
reality, the clock would point to II and
the man who had always gone to bed
when the clock told him it was IL would
continue to do so because he would be
just as tired as he always had been
before at that stage of the light
The only necessity for altering the
timepieces at all, and deceiving our
selves in this seemingly childish way,
is to make everybody do the same Uni
versal agreement is necessary before
the thing would work at all, and, with
the object of securing this. the inventor
of the scheme has explained how it is
to be done in a pamphlet which has
been sent to all the members of both
houses of parliament and the heads of
most of the cOuntry's great industrial
concerns,
The consequences have been amaz-
ing. Bankers, steelmakers, bishops and
schOOlmasterS in every quarter have
offered to do all in their power to put
the clock right according to the sea
sons. Great men whom no ONE would
call cranks express their high approval
of the proposal, and a powerful COM
mittee is to be formed at an early date
to put the movement on a proper foot
ing.
Naturally, the innovation has its crit
les, but it is a curious ffct that most
of them change their views when they
have thought the matter over properly.
No fatal flaw has yet been discovered
in the program
Some ingenious person said it would
entirely disorganize railway traffic, but
as a matter of fact, the trains would
run precisely as they do now-by the
clock. The only difference would be
that all the trains that were actually
running at the moment the change was
made would arrive twenty minutes
late. Moreover, there are very few
trains running at a. m. on Sundays.
The saving to the whole country IN
the cost of artificial light promises to
be enormous. The public spend about
tenth of a penny per head per hour
on light. There are nearly $4,000, 900
people in the British Isles and if they
have 30 hours of extra daylight during
the year the saving works out to about
$500, 600 pounds sterling a year.
The scheme grows more fascinating
the longer one thinks about it. There
may be a new era in athletics, and a
proportionate all-round gain in the
physique of the population. Many peO-
pie hesitate to play cricket, tennis or
golf now after their work, because the
light does not last long enough; but
when people are at liberty to begin a
cricket match when the sun tells them
| it is only o'clock in the afternoon, all