[cotsworfh] the need of a " rational almanac " 227 



B would add two days to February, and one day each to June and 



September, whilst reducing January, May, July, August and 



October by one day each. 



D, on the other hand, siniply reduces all the months to the 28 days' 



length of February, and inserts a 28 day month after June — 



all exactly equal. That regular levelling down to the four 



common weeks would be easily understood by everybody, 



whereas the confusing additions and deductions to the various months 



proposed by A, B, and C would prejudice the advantage of change and 



leave their new months little better in usefulness than the present months 



for the masses of the people we need to consider most. 



Such improvements as A, B, and C suggest would only give the 

 advantages of fixed comparative week-day names to dates repeating each 

 three months, but clearly the most insistent and constant public need 

 is for the regular return of week-day names to the same dates in 'every 

 month and months to end with the week. 



We need not be surprised that the relatively very few lawyers and 

 landlords who *use the quarters of the year most and are least in touch 

 with the almanac needs of the masses of the people, should, by repetition 

 in legal documents, have attached undue importance to those three- 

 monthly periods; but if they do not realize the vast changes effected 

 during the last 'two thousand years, that have resulted in replacing the 

 Roman system of quarter year payments by the vastly more numerous 

 monthly and innumerable weekly payments and engagements now neces- 

 sary, we who consider the merits of proposed improvements must give 

 the most weight of opinion to that dominant fact of changed conditions 

 having led to the quarterly periods being so little used now even in 

 Europe, whilst you scarcely use them in America. 



The few times the quarter years are used when compared with the 

 constant recall of the month so frequently every day when reading and 

 writing dates in our busy world, makes the practical Value and con- 

 venience of having the quarter years end with the month, of very minor 

 importance to' that of ending the months with the week. But when the 

 extension of method D is considered as the proposed "Rational Al- 

 manac" on the following page, the needs of fewer persons who use 

 the quarter years are better met by the quarters there ending on Satur- 

 days with the respective first, second and third weeks of the fourth, 

 seventh and tenth months, than by each third month end of unequal 

 months. 



Indeed, it would be more convenient in many businesses to locate 

 the quarter-day at those week ends when the pressure of monthly work 

 was passed, as we now do in England by the 6th of April, and in Scot- 

 land by the 15th of May and 11th of N"oveipber, for rentals and like 

 payments. See. ill., 1908. is. 



