The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1928-02-17

~ w thing similar to it is still
quoted among the Quakers
in Pennsylvania who say:
Fourth, eleventh, ninth and sixth.
Thirty days to each affix;
Every other thirty-one
Except the second month alone.
more complete statement, and one
nearer the preSent-day version, was
given in 1.-THE Return From Parnas-
sus' Qondon, 1860 as follows:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November,
February has twenty-eight alone,
All the rest have thirty-one;
Excepting leap year-that's the time
When February's days are twenty-nine.
And the New Englanders have made
It little better verse by phrasing it
thus:
Thirty days hath September
April, June and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
Till leap year gives il twenty-nine.
All of which serves to remind us
that February 90 is approaching and
the appearance of that date on our
calendars means that this is a leap
year. As for what a leap year is and
why it is called that let Mr.. Webster
explain as follows: Every fourth
year in which any fixed date after
February LEAPS over a day of the
week and falls on the next week day
but one to that on which it fell the
year before. Centennial years which
are exactly Invisible by 400, as 1000,
and others exactly Invisible by 4, as
1908, are leap years."
Mr.. Webster's dictionary does not
explain how February happened to
become the month which would be
affected by leap years but Mr.. Cham
bers' Book of Days" does. Here is
what he says:
February was one of the two months
January being the other) introduced
into the Roman calendar by Numa
Pompilius, when he extended the year
to twelve of these periods. 1t
has been on the whole an ill-used
month, perhaps in consequence of it's
noted want Gin the northern hemis-
phere) of what is pleasant and agree
able to the human senses. Numa let
fall on it the doom which was I'M
avoidable for some one of the months,
of having, three out of four times a
day less than even those which were
to consist of thirty days. That is to
say, he arranged that it should have
in,
leap years; when, by the INTERPOLATION
of day between the 23rd and the 24th
it was to have thirty. No great occasion
here for complaint. But when Augustus
chose to add a thirty-first day to Au-
gust, that the month named from him
should not lack in the dignity en-
joyed by six other months of the year,
he took it from February, which could
least spare it, thus reducing 1T to
twenty-eight in all ordinary years. In
our own parliamentary arrangement
for the reformation of the calendar, II
being necessary to drop day out of
each century excepting those of which
the ordinal number could be divided by
four, 1T again fell to the lot of Feb
ruary to be the sufferer. 1t was de-
prived if it's 10Th day for all such
years and so 1t befell in the year 1900.
and will in 1900, 21oe. 1900. etc.
Since 1923 is Invisible by four, it
is leap year and that may be cause
for rejoicing by some Of us, not be-
cause the much-abused February gets
back its Doth day this year, but be-
cause girls and women who have had
to wait in vain for a proposal of
marriage need wait no longer. They
can take matters into their own cap
able hands and be perfectly justified
by custom, tradition or what-not in
doing a bit of proposing themselves.
Just when the privilege originated
giving women the right to do the pro-
posing during leap year is unknown.
1t may date from 1888 when law