[cotsworth] the need OF A " RATIONAL ALMANAC " 213 



UB to ascertain the cost of working with less labour, and, further, we 

 gained greater accuracy. We were thus able to get home earlier and 

 happier, without working unpaid overtime. 



Being desirous of doing so every month, my attention was directed 

 to the loss and anomalies developed by our imperfect almanac system. 

 Whilst investigating the origin of our anomalous months and the shift- 

 ing weeks therein, as explained later,, an easy way was disclosed by which 

 all our almanac troubles can be avoided. 



Noticing that as business became more exacting in accelerated ratio 

 each following year, the chief officers required more precise explanations 

 of the differences in the cost of handling tlie traffic each successive 

 month, to avoid waste and increase efficiency; the cause was so gen- 

 erally found in the needless variations of our almanac (especially after 

 the moon-wandering of Easter began), that the child-born assumption 

 as to the almanac system of our ancestors being best^ gradually vanished, 

 as the extent of our almanac created inconveniences, difficulties and 

 waste of labour forced on governments, railway and canal companies, 

 shipowners, manufacturers, traders and workers became evident. 



The crude and imperfect system of having twenty-eight to thirty- 

 one day months fixed nearly two thousand years ago by the Caesars, 

 sufficed when the work of the world was done by unpaid slaves; but 

 the freedom and enterprise won since then have developed new conditions 

 needing better almanac facilities. The exclusive barriers of nations 

 have been broken down and interchange of trade is universal, neces- 

 sitating duplicate dates by buyers and sellers where different almanacs 

 exist. Few persons realize that the one-third of Europe's population 

 (in Eussia, Turkey, Eoumania, Greece, etc.) trade with us in duplicate 

 dates, involving interest calculations and legal difficulties. The intro- 

 duction of steamships, railways, telegraphs, cables, telephones and mod- 

 em business and social methods have very extensively changed our 

 almanac requirements for equal months, etc., since the 7-days week was 

 established in Europe by Constantine nearly four centuries after the 

 irrational months were fixed by Augustus Caesar. 



The business and social inconvenience evidenced during the Christ- 

 mas weeks of 1894 and 1895 (when Christmas Day came in the middle 

 of the week), disturbed regular ideas of the week. Market-days and 

 weekly appointments had to be altered, causing trouble, confusion, 

 expense and disappointments. 



ISToticing the heart-burning caused to shop-assistants and other 

 toilers, whose cherished Christmas family re-unions were curtailed to 

 get them back for Friday and Saturday's business (when they could not 

 link up the nearest week-end with the hnlirlays), brousrht the idea to 



