218 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



appeared on December 22nd [as it does at 23.50 o'clock this year (1908) 

 on the Standard Meridian of Greenwich], so that first noon, 45 B.C., 

 accidentally fixed the commencement of our yc-^s ten days from nature's 

 year's end. 



That discrepancy he could not avoid when the illiterate peasantry 

 scattered throughout the Empire could only understand that signal to 

 begin the new era, biut as the great object of that reform was to confer 

 the permanent benefits of a fixed year to locate the season for each 

 day's work, the days were arranged accordingly in thirty-one and thirty 

 day months. 



July, then named in honour of Julius Cœsar's birthday therein, 

 had thirty-one days, but when Augustus Cœsar was enthroned, after 

 Julius Caesar died, vanity led hmi to alter the name of his birthday 

 month from Sextilis (6th) to August, and as it had only thirty days 

 his pride led him to add one day to August. For reasons best known 

 to himself he took that day from February. 



That gave the third quarter of the year ninety-three days, leaving 

 only ninety in the first quarter, and by disturbing calculations for rents, 

 interest, etc., caused public outcry. 



To sustain his pride from publicly acknowledging Julius Caesar's 

 superior plan, Augustus took one day each from September and Novem- 

 ber, to make the 31st of October and 31st December. Thus the pride 

 and arrogance of Augustus Caesar has during 1,900 years inflicted the 

 present irrational months upon European races with the consequent 

 inequalities of 90, 91, 92, 92 days in the quarters of the year, and the 

 disparity of three days between the 181 days in the first half, and the 

 184 days in the second half of the years. 



Those inequalities not only disturb the computations for interest, 

 rents, etc., but they unequalize the annual sub-divisions of salaries, etc., 

 and have a far more potent effect upon the most desired net earnings 

 of large railway and other corporations whose influences are yearly 

 becoming more powerful, e.g., the three days difference between the half 

 years inflate the dividends for the half year ending December 31st, by 

 about 2 per cent, and that disparity is further disturbed by the present 

 needless changing of the week-day names for the days throughout suc- 

 cessive years, owing to the odd 53rd week-day beyond 52 weeks recurring 

 on the last day of each year. Those with the inequalities of the months 

 cause stocks and shares to vary in value bieyond trade variations, giving 

 rise to stock exchange gambling, and with their attendant evils inflict 

 loss upon thrifty workers variously paid by the week and month, paying 

 rents and other charges by the existing unequal months, which cannot 

 be equated by the indispensable week that divides February alone into 

 the four weeks best suited to modem requirements. 



