CHANGE OF STYLE. 



England the year commenced on Lady Day (25th March) until 

 1752. 



It must not be understood that this commencement of the year 

 involved any change either in the months or in the order of their 

 days. Thus when the year commenced on Christmas Day, that 

 day was still called the 25th December, and was preceded by the 

 24th and followed by the 26th December ; but the 24th December 

 belonged to one year and the 25th to the next. In like manner, 

 the two days which we now refer back to as the 24th and 25th 

 March, 1751, were, at the time they actually occurred, called the 

 24th March, 1750, and 25th March, 1751. Thus 24 days of 

 March belonged to 1750, and the remaining 6 days to 1751. 



115. To us at present, with the habits of counting the years, 

 months, and days to which we have been accustomed, such a 

 method of commencing the years appears so absurd and attended 

 with such strange confusion and disorder that we find it difficult 

 to imagine how a people could ever continue the practice of it. 

 Nevertheless it is certain, so far from any such impression 

 existing at the time this usage prevailed, the announcement of the 

 change of style, as it was called, which was decided upon by the 

 legislature in 1751-2, encountered the most serious resistance, 

 and excited popular disturbances of grave importance. The 

 transfer of the beginning of 1752 from the 25th of March to the 

 1st of January, immediately preceding it, deprived the year 1751 

 of the months of January, February, and twenty-four days of 

 March, nearly the whole of its three last months. 



This change and the apparent sponging out from the course of 

 time of eleven days exasperated the populace, who, assembled in 

 the streets of London, and pursued the members of the government 

 (among whom was the celebrated Lord Chesterfield) when they 

 appeared, with cries and imprecations, demanding that their 

 eleven days should be given back to them. 



The traces of this custom in our country are still apparent in 

 various practices. Leases are commenced and determined by 

 Lady Day. The quarter days on which rents become due are 

 regulated in the same manner. All rents are payable on Lady 

 Day and Michaelmas Day, and not, as might naturally be expected, 

 on the last days of June and December. 



116. Until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in England 

 in 1752, the years, as has been already stated, commenced upon the 

 25th March, so that the year 1751 began on the 25th March, 1751, 

 and ended upon the day now called the 24th March, 1752, while 

 the year 1752 ended on the day now called the 24th March, 1753. 

 Independently of the other obvious objections to such a system, it 

 was out of all accordance with the mode of reckoning time prac- 



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