MANAWTU EVENING STANDARD AND POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 2,500 Copies Daily FRIDAY, SEPT. 19, 1902. THE ALMANAC.

Manawatu Standard, Issue 7403, 19 September 1902, Page 2

MANAWTU EVENING STANDARD AND POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 2,500 Copies Daily FRIDAY, SEPT. 19, 1902. THE ALMANAC.

llk an article on tho absurdities of tbo almanac a writer in the Academy remarks that though tho earth completes its revolution round tho sun in 305 days five hours and a fraction, wo have arranged tho civil year go that it consists of iio!j days only, and wo have therefore tointerealculato un extra day every fourth year to makeup iho diffierence. If we look at tho namc3 of tho divisions of our j ear, we find ourselves confronted with a system co confusing to our modern ideas that ie seoni3 as if it had been inventod by mandarins. The dttja of tho week arodedicated to tho sun and to the moon, Saturn of tho Roman mythology, to the Woden, Thor and Freyu of the Scandinavian, and to a seventh god to obscure that it is extremely difficult to discover any reference to him in any document or antiquity. Tho months are in like manner named af<or two Christian saints, Januariaus and Fobruarittus, tho Roman Mars, a word which is said to refer to tho annual opening of tho earth, the nympn Maia the goddess Juno, the firat two Ciesare, and—worst absurdity of all—tho numbers seven, eight, nine, and ten, which we carefully apply to tho ninth, tomb, eleventh, and twelve months respectively. A large part of Christendom, although it accepts those heathon appellations, still enjoys a different arrangement of tho year from tho rest of it, so that tho Russians and other nations belonging to the Orthodox Church oolobrate Mars and other heathen deities at a different (time from ourselves. But the greatest inconvenience of all is tho olaoonny arrangement by which the days of the week and the days of the month fail to correspond from year to year, to that it requires much calculation before we can ascertain whothor December 25 or any other day will fall on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. The greater part of this confusion comes, ot ,courae, from the objection which Europeans—unliko the Japanese —haye always felt to breaking entirely, with tho past.