Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1907 — When Little Old February Got Docked [ARTICLE]

When Little Old February Got Docked

Little old sawed-off February is with us once again. This was one of the months, January being the dther, introduced into the Roman calendar by Numa Pompilus when he extended the year to twelve monthly periods. The name came from the word “februare,” meaning to expiate, to purify, and arose from the practice of religious expiation and purification which took place at this time of the year among the Romans. Numa arranged that it should only have twentynine days, except in leap years, when it should have thirty. But when Augustus Caesar chose to add a thirty-first day to August, that the month he had named after himself might not lack in the dignity enjoyed by six other months of the year, he took a day from February thus reducing it to twenty-eight days in all ordinary years, and considering the kind of weather the month generally dishes up, nobody would have missed them very much if old hustling Gus had chiseled off three or four more days while he was about it. In a later arrangement of the calendar, it being necessary to drop a day out of each century, excepting those of which the ordinary number could be divided by four to make the years jibe just right with the earth’s motion around the sun, and it again fell to the lot of February to be the sufferer. It was deprived ot its twenty-ninth day for all such years and it sc befell in 1800 and in 1900, as it will in 2000, 2100, 2200, etc.