REFORM OF THE CALENDAR_ * - [To the Editor of
Ike- SPECTATOR.] SIR,--Mr. Secretary Ramsay MacDonald, replying in 1924 on behalf of the Foreign Office to the League of Nations Inquiry, stated that the practical consideration of this country has been almost entirely confined to the question of the date of Easter. He further stated that the Government could not afford any facilities for legislation until the prOmoters of Bills are in a position to produce evidence, among Other things,. of the existence.of a public opinion, especially in industrial quarters, favourable to reform.
It may interest your readers and enlighten the F.O. to know that nearly thirty years ago a reform of the calendar; including the stabilization of Easter, was publicly advocated by a member of the industrial classes. It was probably a result of such membership that his advocacy remained un- noticed by the public authorities.
I hive before me a small volume, entitled The Rational Almanac, by Moses B. Cotsworth, of York, printed privately in 1899. Mr. Cotsworth was born and educated in York; When I had the privilege of his acquaintance he was • in the employinent of the N.E. Railway Company.
He says that without disturbing the accepted Gregorian lengths of years the proposed permanent almanac could be easily realized by three simple steps : (I) Lease naming Christmas Day by any week-day name, merely calling it. " Christmas Day," and fit it into the last week of the year as a duplicate Sunday. (2) Let Easter, Whitsuntide and other movable Festivals be fixed to fall on such permanent dates' " as will best suit the convenience, welfare, and pleasure of the people." (8) Divide the fifty-two weeks of the'year into thirteen months of four weeks each by inserting a Midatnrinuer) mouth.
To -illustrate his proposal he gives a proposed "almanac-for the year 1916, selecting that year in order that-the-first daiof January may be a Sunday. Easter should, he says, fall towardS the end of April to suit the exigencies of our cliinate,`, and would be therefore the 15th- or 22nd of that month. Christmas Day would follow Sunday,. December 22nd and :precede Monday the 23rd of that-month; He would make the extra blank day of Leap Year fall in the midsummer months (which he names " Sol ")- and call it " Leap Day " apart from -any week-day name, as is the case of " Christmas Day."
I believe that Mr. Cotsworth settled in U.S.A. and I have lost sight of him. It may be that he is still living and that he is the author of one of the twenty-seven schemes of Calendar Reform submitted by the United States to the League of Nations. At any rate, it seems reasonable that his early efforts on behalf of this much-needed reform should not be ,forgotten.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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