Interesting Data about the English Calendar. 4} 
the change of style for nearly two centuries, and it was not till 
A.D. 1752 that she adopted the reform. At that time another 
day had been lost, and eleven days had to be accounted for. 
Russia still holds on to the old style, and her reckoning is now 
twelve days behind the rest of the world. 
These are the principles of the English calendar, and in 
applying them it will be plainer and more interesting to take 
some. special date. For this purpose I select Washington’s 
birthday. 
The family Bible records Washington’s birth on “ye rith 
day of February, 1734,” and on the spot where stood his humble 
home was placed, in 1815, by his step-grandson, G. W. P. 
Custis, a stone slab inscribed: ‘Here, the 11th day of Feb- 
ruary, 1734, George Washington was born.” ‘These records fix 
the date under the old style, and this was the date on which 
he kept his birthday till he was twenty years old. He would 
have written it February 11, 1731. It was near the end of 
that year, about six weeks before New Year’s Day, 1732, which 
was March 25. He would have been twenty years old, then, 
on February 11, 1751, but that day never came, for the year 
1751 ended December 31, and the year 1752 began the next 
day, January 1, the British Parliament having just changed New 
Year’s Day from March 25 to January 1, and applied the change 
for the first time to the year 1752. The change simply 
shortened the year 1751 by taking away January, February, and 
March, and putting them at the beginning of the year 1752. 
His twentieth anniversary, then, would fall February 11, 1752. 
So much for the year; let us now correct the day of the 
month. ‘The act of Parliament in its preamble states: ‘“ Where- 
as, the Julian calendar hath been discovered to be erroneous, 
by means whereof the spring equinox, which, at the Council of 
Nice, A.D. 325, happened on the 21st of March, now happens 
on the ¢enth day of the same month; and the said error is 
still increasing, therefore, etc., etc.” It then enacts, in order 
to drop the eleven intermediate days, that the day after the 2d 
of September, 1752, shall be reckoned and called the 14th of 
September, thus making September of that year to have only 
nineteen days. This change, as well as the one setting back 
the beginning of 1752 from March 25 to January 1, was 
naturally applied to all previous dates, and thus» Washington’s 
birthday has ever since been known and taken as February 22, 
0732. 
The dropping of those days gave great offence to the popu- 
lace of London, as is evident from the caricatures of the 
time. Those who are familiar with Hogarth’s pictures satirising 
the politics of his day will remember the flag displayed at the 
