The Washington herald., 1911-12-31
Ladies! 1919; Leap Year.
Thirty DAYS hath September
ATril. juno. and November;
al the rest have thirty-ons
EXCEPT the sCcng,d month alone.
Mnlcn mas Uut lWtniN -el-hl III HiC'
Till Lean Year RiNcs il tMenty-nine.


ATTil. June. and November
Al the rest have thirty-oDs
EXCEPT the sCcuCd month alone.
Which has but twenty-cish in fine
Till Leap Year gives it twenty-nine.
The history of leap year is interesting,
not only TO those of the gentler SEX who
are matrimOniaIly inclined. but also to
the student. the scientist. As year Is the
time of the earth's revolution around the
sun. it should contain 365 days and Il
fraction of a day. The anCients. having
great respect for the moon, wanted the
year to be sub0ivided into parts CORE
spending with her revolution around sthe
earth.
The difficulties of adjusting the moons
revolutions or months, so as to be to-
gether equal 20 the earth's revolutions
round the sun gave rise to February it.
self, and to many OF the changes which
the month has undergone before it stood
with its present number of days. Ro-
mulus division of the year is the first
European one known, and the one upon
which our own division is based.
RomuIus' First Division.
He had ten months. whose total length
was 3O4 days. How he patched up the
year with the odd days so as to make it
anything like correct is not known. To
remedy this mistake which left sixty
one days unaccounted for. Numa Pom
pilius. second King of Rome, added two
months, January and February. jan
uary. named after Janus, the god who
presided over the beginning of all things,
was made the first month of the year.
February in Latin means to eXpiate.
In this month the eXpiatOry sacrifices
were performed. and as the sins of the
year were, very naturally, atoned for af-
ter they were committed, February was
made the last of the months. Two hundred
years after NUma POmpilius. February
was brought by the Decemvirs. for rea-
sons best known to themselves, to its
present position.
Although two new months had been
added, namely. January and February,
the year was not long enough yet. Numa
made his months to correspond to the
revolutions of the moon, which made S54
days or eleven days short Of the earth's
annual journey around the sun. When
the Romans found one month had to be
changed they hit upon February, for
no apparent reason. unless it was be-
cause 1t is the month of the dead.
PontiTs in Charge.
The clumsy alteration was made by
naming a month which appeared on al
ternate years. Several other clumsy cor
rections were made. until the days and
months came out pretty even. Things
did not work very we'll. however under
this system, for politics appeared. The
calendar was in charge of the pontiffs,
and if they wanted to keep a friend in
office they could lengthen the extra
month, or if they wanted to hold cleo
lions before their enemies were ready
they could curtail the month and catch
their opponents mapping.
There is nothing on record to indicate
that the pOntiffs ever took advantage of
their prerogatives in this respect. After
awhile matters became so badly mixed
that in Julius Caesars time the winter
months were in the autumn and the au
tumn months in the summer, and so on.
Caesar took the bull by the horns and
introduced two months of his own be-
tween November and December. This
gave the Romans year of AS days.
This particular year. which was B. c.
g. is known to history as THE year of
the confusion" This wonderful year
Cancelled all previous errors. and when
the question of how to make the succeed
ing years of equal length, and to cor
respond to the annual revolution of the
earth around the sun and Caesars at
tempts at. its solution, brought about the
introduction of leap year. Caesar did
not consider the moon in his calculations.
but made months Of thirty and thirty
one days alternately, except February,
which he gave Twenty-Five days in ordi-
nary years and thirty every fourth year.
Because of his Strengthening out the diff
fculties of the calendar, and because he
calculated to within fraction of a day
in each year. Caesar was deemed worthy
of a lasting memorial. Therefore, the
name of the month Quintilis was changed
to Julius.
Named for Caesar.
Augustus Caesar, the successor OF
Julius, after some victories by his armies, |
had a month named for him. 1t so hap
pened, however, that the month named |
for Augustus had only thirty days, /
whereas that named for julius had thir- !
ty-one Augustus did not like this, so
he had an extra day added to August |
Thereafter February had twenty-eight |
days in ordinary years, and twenty-nine !
in leap year. Since the time of Ghe !
Caesars, however. II has been found |
necessary to reduce the number of leap |
years. If the dictionary were consulted !
for the meaning of leap year. it would /
probably read every fourth year" That !
answer-though it would have done we'll |
i'm Caesars time-is not correct now, be- |
cause the arrangements which had then /
been arrived at made the year Of the |
proper length. except only the fraction |
of an hour. The year was. on the aver
age. 365 IA days long. whereas the suns
revolution is II minutes 10 seconds less
than that. This slight error might have
been corrected at once by a reduction
in the number of leap years. But the |
error was allowed to grow. so that by
A. D. 1852, the year in which 1t was cor
rected, it amounted to ten days. In that
year Pope Gregory decreed that the 5th
Of October be the 18th. thus canceling
the error Of the past. /
Old style in Russia.
The correction was not adopted by all
the countries at once, but gave rise to
what is known as the new style in those
countries which did adopt 1t. To this day
Russia holds by the old style. and in