[coïbworth] the need OF A " RATIONAL ALMANAC " 289 



We need the four-week-month because the 7 days week has become 

 the working and paying unit used by the masses of our vastly increased 

 population. The people under Augustus were mostly fed by rations 

 and seldom biought or sold — indeed, they were largely sold like cattle 

 and slaved ten days per week. They had not the freedom to enjoy 

 the seven days which Constantino the Great conferred on Europeans 

 about four centuries later. 



Almanac needs in this busy age of world-wide trade, have grown 

 beyond the scope of the narrow limits and antiquated methods that 

 sufficed for the selfish fancy of Augustus, — now that all countries are 

 opened up for the mimense international trade now done, and are pene- 

 trated by the ever increasing railways, steamships, and other methods 

 of communication. 



That trade involves duplicate entries and troublesome diversity 

 wherever different almanacs are used. The prevailing confusion im- 

 pressed me whilst wintering near Jerusalem during December, 1900, 

 and January, 1901, when five different Christmases and four New 

 Years were there celebrated by various races and creeds. 



Whilst we cannot forthwith remedy all that confusing effect, we can 

 easily take the common-sense course of adopting a " Standard Month " 

 at an early date for our own convenience; then the Eastern races will 

 be quick enough to follow in order to gain the facilities that change will 

 bring. 



After twelve years of continuous consideration and investigation in 

 various countries, I submit for your consideration, that the present 

 erratic months fixed by the caprice of Augustus Cœsar are becoming so 

 irksome under the developing needs of our civilization now requiring 

 greater convenience, that the simple month of four weeks (giving equal 

 division into thirteen months and thirteen weeks to the quarters of every 

 year) will prove most advantageous, and that it will ultimately become 

 universal for the reasons given — the chief of them being that it would 

 be easiest when fixed and permanently supplying the greater convenience 

 we should derive from having all the months uniformly containing four 

 weeks, so that Sundays would be the 1st, Sth. loth and 22nd; Mondays, 

 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd, etc.; whilst the essential weekly wages, etc., 

 would then always accord with the corresponding monthly payments. 

 Then every almanac purpose would be completely served for national 

 and international use by all nations, who might then begin the Universal 

 Era and relieve their peoples from almanac anomalies and inconveniences. 



Forethought is necessary as the most useful and widest used 

 "Nautical Almanac," based on Greenwich Time, is now internationally 

 adopted for navigation throughout the world, and is worked out and 



