THE NEW YEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 1, 3 January 1933, Page 8

THE NEW YEAR

CALENDAR PROBLEMS

NOT ALWAYS IST JANUARY

FIXING THE DATE

Those who towal-d midnight on New Tear's Eve helped make the night hideous ' v?ith their cat-calls and barbaric «rics, together with the great majority at those who celebrated more sedately at home, or were enjoying their beauty sleep when the clocks struck twelve and 1933 was ushered in for weal or for woe, gave little thought as to why Ist January is the first day of the New .Year or as to when that date was selected for this very special honour. "Theirs not to reason why." As far as they were concerned 31st Decoratier had always been, and presumably would always be, the last day of the year and Ist January the first day of the New Year. Yet Ist January has aiot always been New.Year's Day, and it. is not New Year's Day to millions and trillions of this globe's inhabitants.

"We are not even indebted to the Jvomans for the fact that Ist January is 2sew Year's Day, although it is they who have supplied us with the calendar in general use at the present time. The trouble ■with the year, reckoned as the length of time it takes the earth to go once completely round the sun, has always been that the exact time this celestial hiko takes is, within a few seconds, 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes, which, even if the odd sceonds are disregarded, is a time which it is impossi-' Me to divide up into equal parts expressed in days. The aucient Egyptians had a year consisting of 12 months of 30 days each, together with five supplementary days. . Calculating their year in this way, they lost about ono complete day in every four years. No bright spark seems to have thought of our present Leap Year expedient, and so in course of time they found the seasons completely altered as to the time of year in. which they fell. The- very early Eomans seem to have had a year of ten months only, beginning with March and ending with December. This year was only 304 days long, but when Numa came on the scene he added another month (January) at the beginning of the year and February at the end. Ultimately this was changed, so that the two additional months fell at the beginning of the year. As tho months consisted of 29 and 30 days alternately, Numa's year was only 354 days long, a number which waa subsequently increased- to 355 because the Bomans were very superstitious and firmly believed in tho luck of odd numbers.

That this year of theirs did not coincide with the solar year, beijig teii days too short, the Romans fully realised, so every two years they inserted an additional month into 'the calendar. The length of this intercalated month does not appear to have been regulated by any fixed principle, with the result that it came to be a weapon of some effect with the pontiffs who happened to be running the show. If it suited them to lave a short month so that they could spite their enemies they had it. On the other hand, if friends were in power, they prolonged their^ tenure of- office by having quite a Jcngthy month. THE JULIAN CALENDAR. , This haphazard method of playing with the calendar did not, suit the great Julius Caesar, and-one of his first acts, when he became dictator, was to reform the calendar. For this he enlisted the help of Sosigenes, an astronomer from Alexandria, but Caesar got all the kudos. Such a mess had the calendar got into, that Caesar found it neceseary to decree a year of 445 days in ercier that the calendar year might again coincide with the solar year. This Jengthy year was the year 47 8.C., andwas aptly known as the last year of the era of confusion. . The months in the Julian calendar had 30 and 31 days alternately, with the exception of February, which was to have in ordinary years 29 days and SO m leap year. This order, however was upset "in the time of Augustus. He named a month after himself, and in order that it' should have the same number of days as that named, after the great Julius (July) he fflehed one * F'b'uar-T s days- That is .August has 31 days. y At this time the New.Tear was looked upon as beginning at the time of • -?, 7 ernal Equinox, in March. ' This will be realised when it is understood what the Latin names of the months signify (September, October, November 'and December mean the 7th, Bth, Oth' and 10th months respectively). ' GREGORY PUTS THINGS RIGHT. Clever as_ Julius Caesar was, he was still not quite right with his calendar. One mistake was to have a leap year every three years instead of every four Augustus corrected this, but the year was still 11 minutes 14 seconds too long. This may not sound much, but in the course of centuries it amounted to several days. In the sixteenth century Pope Gregory XIII took up the matter of calendar reform, and as the error then amounted to ten days he issued a Bull which simply annulled the ten days between sth October and 15th October m the year 1582. It was bad luck for those whose birthdays happened to fall in that period, but the calendar was right and all was well. J.n order that the calendar should not go wrong again, it was ordained that the centurial years should not be recognised as leap years, except when they were divisible by 400. Thus IGOO was a leap year; 1900 was' not, and 2000, if we get there, will be. OUTCRY OVER LOST DAYS. Naturally enough this new calendar, being of Catholic origin, did not find ready acceptance in Protestant countries. Scotland adopted the change in 1600, and at the same time made Ist January New Year's Day. England, however, held back by vulgar and ignorant prejudice, did not adopt the "New Style" until 1752. By then ■there was a difference of eleven days between the. calendar in use and the true solar calendar. This was rectified by calling 2nd September the 14th September, and New Year's Day was officially transferred from 25th March to Ist January. The change, however, was not effected without riots, molis going about and demanding the restoration of the lost eleven days. The celebration of New Year's Day on Ist January, it will be seen, is of comparatively rcecnt origin. Even yet it is not universal. The Greek Church would have none of Gregory's alterations, and they are now about 13 days behind the rest of Europe in their chronology. The Jews celebrate their New Year on various dates between sth September and sth October, while the many millions of Mohammedans in the world have yet another date for the commencement of thdir New Year. That the so-called civilised white liian likes to nsher in a New Year with hideous din and uncouth noises is said to be a relic of barbarism akin to the tumult that the Chinese make with crackers and drum-beating in order to scare off evil spirits. If the noise made in Wellington on Saturday night has the effect of scaring off the depression from 1933 it will have done something worth while. ' WHERE 1333 WAS BORN. j Xew Zealand, in that favoured year when>there was a full group of difference between Standard Time and

Summer Time was the first country in the world to herald the New Year. But since she has reverted to the halfhour that distinction is shared with Fiji. .

A year or a day has got to begin somewhere in the world; where, is purely a matter of arrangement^ however much cranks may arguo otherwise. It has been agreed amongst civilised peoples that days and years begni on what is known as the International Date Line. This, - with slight deviations, arranged so as to' av6id such islands as fall upon or near the meridian, i. follows the lSOth . line of longitude. New Zealand, beiug immediately to tho west of this line, greets the New Year as soon as anyone else. Two hours later Australia gets it; then come tho turns of Japan, China, India, eastern Europe, and Africa. Exactly twelve hours after .New Zealand had seen the dawn of 1933, folks in England were doing the same. Later still it became .1933 in the United States, and last 'of all, a full 24 hours after New Zealand's welcome, 1933 dawned in Samoa, these Islands lying just to the east of the International Date Line. By midnight on Sunday (New Zealand time) the whole world had welcomed 1933 with varying hopes and fears, and with varying methods of celebrations —all the world", that is, with the exception of ..Jews, Mohammedans, and some aboriginal folk to whom calendars and years mean nought.