Confound that Pope Gregory who changed the style! He, or some one else,
has robbed the month of February, in ordinary years, of no less than
three days, for Mr. George Sutton, the solicitor, has discovered and
established by the last Brighton Act of Parliament that February has
_really thirty-one days_, while that good-for-nothing Pope led us to
believe it had only twenty-eight. The language of the 45th clause of the
Act or of the bill which went into the Lords is:—
“That so much of the said Consolidation Act as enacts that the ordinary
meetings of the company, subsequent to the first ordinary meeting
thereof, shall be held half-yearly on the 31st day of July, and
_thirty-first day of February_ in each year, or within one month before
or after these days shall be, and the same is hereby repealed.”
The next clause enacts, we suppose by reason of “the 31st of February”
being an inconvenient day, that the meetings shall be held on the 31st of
January and the 31st of July, a month before or a month after.
On account of the great value of an addition of three days to our years,
and, therefore, an annual addition to our lives of three days, we beg to
propose that a handsome testimonial be given to Mr. George Sutton, the
eminent solicitor of the Brighton Railway Company, the author of the Act
and the discoverer of the Pope’s wicked conduct. We further propose that
it be given him on “the 31st day of February” next year, and that his
salary be paid on that day, and no other, every year.
—_Herepath’s Journal_, June 24th, 1854.