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218
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(OCTOBER, 1924
liecensity, could arrange with the Parliaments and Governments Oversens similarly disposed to bring & Reformed Calendar with a Fixed Easter into general use in the British Empire by law. But even then it would only be of partial use, unless the assent of the rest of the Christian nations of the world were gained over-each nationality bringing its own special festivals and customs into the general scheme. It is in fact a feasible though not an casy task, or one likely to be brought to a conclusion in a short time. That it may before long come within the scope of practical politics is shown by the fact that proposals have already been made to bring before the British Parliament a Bill to fix on the Sunday nearest the 16th April in each year as Easter Sunday, all other festivals and customary dates also becoming fixed in the Calendar accordingly.
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Saturday
The existing Solar Calendar with a Fixed Easter. The plan, however, for a Fixed Easter which would cause the least disturbanoe of custom is obviously to confine attention to fixing the fall of Easter Sunday for each year. Let u see how this works out.
As the normal year consists of 52 weeks and one extra day, it obviously ends on the game day of the week as that on which it begins : i.e., whatever day of the week the first of January falls on, that is the day of the week on which 31st December falls. Therefore each succeeding New Year commences on the day of the week following that on which the preceding yeer commenced, but this regular sequence is broken by every fourth year being a Leap Year, the New Year succeeding which being two days later in the week than that on which the Leap Year began. The result is that the sequence is as follows :Year Commencing on
Year Commencing on Sunday
10 Thursday Monday
Friday Tuesday
Leap Year 12 Loap Year 4 Wednesday
Monday Friday
Tuesday Saturday
Wednesday Sunday
Leap Year 16 Thursday Leap Year 8 Monday
17 Saturday Wednesday
18 Sunday
And so on. It is important to give this cycle, as it shows that there is practically no regularity in the fall of New Year's Day on a particular day of the week according to the existing onlendar. This is caused by the extra day over 52 weeks in normal Solar Years, and two in Leap Years. being oountod min a week and not as intercalary. Another result is that the fall of every day of the woek in a month is one day (or two days after the "loap" in Leap Years) later in the week in each suooeeding year. It is this that affects the question of a Fixed Easter and consequently of every festival and customary"day," depending on Easter. The proposal that has been publicly made to fix Easter for general purposes is to fix Easter Sunday as the Sunday nearest to the 15th April. Let us see how this works out. In a normal year the 16th April is the 100th day of the year, i.e., the year is exaotly 16 weeks old on that day, and the result is that it falls on the day of the week previous to that on which lst January fallo. It New Year's Day falls on Sunday, the 18th April will fall on a Saturday, and so on.
