The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-06-01
FRENCH CLOCKS WILL
 STRIKE TWENTY-FOUR.

Time in it's flight has always been subject to cumbersome and stupid systems of reckoning, but there are are coming To-day the French gov ernment legislated the absurd A. M
 and P. M. divisions of the day out of existence and put into effect sys- tenn whereby the hours are mum mbered from one to twenty-fOur, from mid night to midnight. This novel and logical arrangement applied only to the railways and the postal and tele- graph services of France, but it has already been taken up generally. An ticipating the twenty-four hour sys- tenn, the ladies of Paris have for weeks past been having tea at seven teen o'clock instead of five F. M. The plan has also been given a test in, the telegraph offices with satisfactory re- suits, and the way has been paved for bringing about it's general adop- ton to-day without confusion on the part of employees or public. Clocks are on sale all over France which are guaranteed to strike up to twenty four o'clock without missing stroke, and it is likely that thousands of Pa risians will stay up tonight to. hear the clocks toll the dread hour of midnight That. is the hour when ghosts are supposed to roam about, but it is safe to say that no spook would be brave enough to stay in. the same neighborhood with cuckoo clock cuckooing, twenty-four times. New time tables have been printed for all the French railroads, and post marks have also been changed. In- cidentally, eleven o'clock under the new system becomes twenty-three and if the significance of that number is understood in France it should serve as striking reminder to French beaux, when calling upon their below ed, that it is time to "skiddoo." <
 After alh there is nothing new un- der the sum-. The twenty-four hour system was put in effect several years ago on the transcontinental service of the Canadian Pacific railway.
 Having reformed the day, the French government might do we'll to turn it's attention to those other rep rehensible characters, the week, the month and the year.. The times are out of joint there even more than in the day. Numerous schemes for re- forming the calendar have been pro- posed for centuries past, but to se- cure their adoption is another matter. Robert Harcourt, a Liberal member. of the British Parliament, recently in troduced a bill for doing away with some of the objectionable features of the calendar. He proposed that the business year be made to consist of four quarters of ninety-one days each, or exactly thirteen weeks. In ordln- ary years the calendar, both weekly and monthly, would thus be symmet- rical for each of the four quarters. In leap years the calendars for the first and second quarters and for the third and fourth quarters would be symmet- rical. In favor of this system, MT. Harcourt claims that the calculation of apportionable payments, the keep ing and auditing of accounts and the tabulat ting of statistical returns would be greatly simplifed.
 To-day is the tirtieth anniv versary of the death of Garibaldi, the famous Italian patriot and soldier. A son of the hero took part in the Mexican revolution last year, while his daugh- ter was a delegate to the Methodist jy, iv, Mc