54 The Week 



the numerous changes and alterations of calendars by e very- 

 people, the identification of any particular day must now be 

 purely arbitrary, and the real original seventh day it must 

 now be a matter of impossibility to distinguish.* No objec- 

 tion therefore on that ground can be valid against a further 

 alteration of the day or week, provided that preponderating 

 reasons can be adduced on other grounds in favour of it. In 

 fact, the only way possible now, to make sure of sometimes 

 hitting on the right original seventh day, if any, is to alter 

 the cycle to another number of days, which would of course 

 make the new Sunday, or Sabbath, or day of rest, occasionally 

 coincide with the original one. 



I now come to the proposition — the making of which is 

 the object of this paper. This is, to shorten the week from 

 seven to five days, as the Romans formerly found it con- 

 venient to reduce theirs from eight to seven. I am satisfied 

 from a variety of reasons that the present week is too long. 

 I think that people work much harder now than they did 

 when the septenary cycle was first instituted, and that six 

 days of such continuous hard work to one of rest is too 

 much. This is proved by the innovations made upon the 

 Saturday, which is now neither one thing nor the other. It 

 is admitted that it is no business day ; that for business 

 purposes it is practically worthless. People attend at their 

 offices as a mere matter of form, though as a business day 

 they allow that it is a delusion and a mockery. But as a 

 holiday it is worse than a delusion ; it is a snare. It is no 

 holiday. For no one worth noticing gets it all, and very 

 many — particularly those who most require it — never get it 

 at all. It is clear that the eight hours movement is of very 

 partial benefit, and the fact that numerous classes are entirely 

 and hopelessly excluded from it, makes it extremely desirable 

 to devise some method of affording them equivalent advan- 

 tages. I cannot see that this can be done, unless by a change 

 like that which I propose. In any case, the only thing that 

 the half-Saturday does plainly and completely, is this ; it 



* I find that it is a disputed point when the Hebrew calendar was formed. 

 It has been referred by some to our year 500, by others to 325, by others 

 300, while some contend for an older origin. (English Cyclopcedia, art. 

 Calendar.) I am willing to concede a possibly much greater antiquity for it 

 than is even claimed, and I offer the following as a rational solution— in 

 Strict accordance with the known style of esoteric Oriental tradition — of 

 a part of Genesis (ch. 5), which has hitherto defied reconciliation with 

 experience or probability. I think it not unlikely that the exceptional 

 longevity attributed to the antediluvian patriarchs, and which Professor 



