THE GREGORIAN CELENDAR.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 437, 20 May 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GREGORIAN CELENDAR.

The information that Rus-ia will adopt the Gregorian cale.ular from the year 1900 imp'ies that she is coming into Hue with the other civilised nations of the world. At the present time the Julian calender is observed in that country, as it was elsewhere until, in the year 1552, Pope Gregory XIII issued- a brief abolishing it in all Catholic countries and introducing in its stead the calendar now in use. The amendment that was ordered was this, that 10 days were to be dropped after the 4th October, 1552, and the loth was reckoned immediately after the 4th. Every hundredth year, which, by the Julian style, was to have been a leap year, was now to be a common year, the fourth excepted. The effect of this was that 1600 was to remain a leap year, but 17C0, IS'JO, aud 1900 were to be the common length, aud 2000 a leap year again In this calendar the length of the solar year was taken to be 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 12 seconds. The difference between this and subsequent observations is immaterial. In Spain, Portugal, and the greater part of Italy the amendment was introduced in 1582, in accordance with the Pope's instructions, and in France these were departed from only to the extent that the 10 days were dropped in December, in which month the 10th was called the 20th. In Catholic Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands the change was introduced in the following year. Poland accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1556, and Hungary in 1557. Protestant Germany, Holland, and Denmark fell into line in 1700, and Protestant Switzerland followed suit in the first year of tho eighteenth century. In the German Empire a difference still remained for a considerable time as to the period for observing Easter. In England the Gregoriau calender was adopted in 1752, an act of Parliamout authorising the change having been passed in the previous year, and the 3rd September was counted as the 14th. The change adopted in England embraced another point. There hid been previous to this time various periods fixed for the commencement of the 3'eir in the various countries of Europe. In France, from the time of Charles IX, the year was reckoned to begin from the Ist January, and this was also th? popuhr reckoning in England, but the legil and ecclesiastical year began on the 26th March. The Ist January was, however, iu 175 ti. adopted as the beginning of the legal year, and it was customary for some time to give two dates for the period intervening between the Ist January and the 25th March—that of the old and that of the new year. Sweden adopted the Gregoriau calendar in 1753, and at the present time Russia is the only European country standing out from the general agreement upon this po.ut. The observance of the Gregorian style will, however, be universal in Europe from the beginning of 1900.