THE LUNERAL. 555 



the week on which 1st January falls in any year, and 

 secondly, the date of the first Sunday in any month of that 

 year, the one object declaring the other. I will now set 

 before you the proof of the first object, and to save time will 

 call the day of the week on which 1st January falls the day 

 for any year, instead of New Year's Day, to be changed on 

 1st March in cases of Leap Year for the next following day 

 of the week, that is to say, for the day of the week, on which 

 1st January would have fallen if 1st February had fallen, as 

 it does in ordinary years, on the same day of the week as 1 st 

 March. The day, then, for this year (1892) being Friday, 

 that for last year was Thursday, and for the year before 

 Wednesday. This principle, allowing two days for Leap 

 Years, obtained from the birth of our Calendar till the year 

 1752, when an omission was made of some of the days of a 

 month. It becomes then necessary to discover a weekday 

 date previous to the alteration, and one, if possible, that we 

 may feel as sure of as we do of to-day's date, in order to 

 find the day, that is. New Year's Day for that year. 



It must be borne in mind a weekday is not the date of an 

 event, it is rather the date of a day of the month, and is 

 shown to be right or wrong by tallying with another weekday 

 in respect to another day of the month. So if the weekdays 

 tally with one another in a diary, they must be either all 

 right or all wrong ; for if any Sunday fall on 3rd, the next 

 Sunday must fall on 10th, and if these two dates chance to 

 be given, they must either be both right or both wrong. It 

 follows that if all the weekdays in a diary extending over a 

 period of several years tally with one another in respect to 

 the days of the month, all must be right, or all wrong. It 

 is absurd to suppose all the dates in a diary are wrong ; we 

 may therefore conclude, from the mere fact of their tallying 

 with one another, they are all right. I may here say the 

 Luneral agrees with every weekday date in Pepys's diary, 

 and I have chosen oneof them, viz., Sunday, 2nd September, 

 1666 — the date of the fire of London — to start from. 



I must ask you now to refer to the proof of the Luneral, 

 viz.. Tables A, B, and C, which have been handed round, 

 and without which I am unable to make my case clear. In 

 Table A are given the months of the year, with the first 

 seven days of the month below January, and the first day 

 only below each of the other months, in their one possible 

 relative position to 1st January in connection with the days 

 of the week — 1st February and March always fall three days 



