ZaLliatilf1W
NOT being prone to indulge myself in good resolutions on January 1st, which I regard as a parvenu date for the New Year, I reflect instead upon the damage to popular customs and the falsification of popular sayings by the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar on September 2nd, 1752.
There are two bodies of rioters with whom I cannot help sympathising—the Luddites, and those who in 1752 paraded the streets and broke a few windows on September 3rd/14th, shouting " Give us back our eleven days." English conserva- tism never displayed itself to greater advantage. Puritan disapproval followed by the change in the calendar was too much for the maypole -and where it is raised in villages today the celebration lacks spontaneity.
Barnaby bright, Barnaby bright The longest day and the shortest night.
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