so much provisions and pay per day, he interprets
day as it is to him on shipboard. When in harbour,
say at Liverpool, a day is, to him as to every one
else who is stationary like himself, a period of
definite length; but when he travels eastward or
westward, his days are variable in length. When
he travels west, he and the sun run a race: the
sun of course beats; but the sailor accomplishes
a little, and the sun has to fetch up that little
before he can complete what foot-racers call a lap.
In other words, there is a longer absolute time
between noon and noon to the sailor going west,
than to the sailor ashore. When he travels
east, on the contrary, he and the sun run
towards each other; insomuch that there is less
absolute time in the period between his Monday's
noon and Tuesday's noon than when he
was ashore. The ship's noon is usually dinnertime
for the sailors; and the interval between
that and the next noon (measured by the sun, not
by the chronometer) varies in length through
the causes just noticed. Once now and then
there are facts recorded in the newspapers which
bring this truth into prominence—a truth
demonstrable enough in science, but not very
familiar to the general public. When the Great
Eastern made her first veritable voyage across
the Atlantic, in June eighteen hundred and sixty,
she left Southampton on the 17th, and reached
New York on the 28th. As the ship was going
west, more or less, all the while, she was going
with or rather after the sun; the interval was
greater between noon and noon than when the
ship was anchored off Southampton; and the
so-called eleven days of the voyage were eleven
long days. As it was important, in reference to
a problem in steam navigation, to know how
many revolutions the paddles made in a given
time, to test the power of the mighty ship, it
was necessary to bear in mind that the ship's
day was longer than a shore day; and it was
found that, taking latitude and longitude into
account, the day on which the greatest run was
made was nearly twenty-four and a half hours
long; the ship's day was equal to half an hour
more than a landsman's day. The other days
varied from twenty-four to twenty-four and a
half. On the return voyage, all this was
reversed; the ship met the sun, the days were
less than twenty-four ordinary hours long, and
the calculations had to be modified in
consequence. The sailors, too, got more food in a
homeward week than an outward week, owing
to the intervals between the meals being shorter
—albeit, their appetites may not have been
cognisant of the difference.

And this brings us back to our hypothetical
Mullets. Josiah died at noon (Sydney time),
and Jasper died on the same day at noon (Greenwich
time). Which died first? Sydney,
although not quite at the other side of the world,
is nearly so; it is ten hours of longitude eastward
of Greenwich; the sun rises there ten
hours earlier than with us. It is nearly
bedtime with Sydney folks when our artisans strike
work for dinner. There would therefore be a
reasonable ground for saying that Josiah died
first. But had it been New Zealand, a curious
question might arise. Otago, and some other
of the settlements in those islands, are so near
the antipodes of Greenwich, that they may
either be called eleven and three-quarter hours
east, or twelve and a quarter hours west, of
Greenwich, according as we suppose the
navigator to go round the Cape of Good Hope or
round Cape Horn. At six in the morning in
London, it is about six in the evening at New
Zealand. But of which day? When it is
Monday morning in London, is it Sunday evening
or Monday evening in New Zealand? This
question is not so easy to solve as might be
supposed. When a ship called at Pitcairn Island
several years ago, to visit the singular little
community that had descended from the
mutineers of the Bounty, the captain was surprised
to find exactly one day difference between his
ship's reckoning and that of the islanders; what
was Monday, the 26th, to the one, was Tuesday,
the 27th, to the other. A voyage east had been
the origin of one reckoning, a voyage west that
of the other. Not unlikely we should have to
go back to the voyage of the Bounty itself,
seventy-seven years ago, to get to the real
origin of the Pitcairners' reckoning. How it
may be with the English settlers in New Zealand,
we feel by no means certain. If the
present reckoning began with some voyage
made round Cape Horn, then our Monday morning
is New Zealand Sunday evening; but if
with some voyage made round the Cape of
Good Hope, then our Monday morning is New
Zealand Monday evening. Probabilities are
perhaps in favour of the latter supposition. We
need not ask " What's o'clock at New Zealand?"
for that can be ascertained to a minute, by
counting the difference of longitude; but to
ask " What day of the week and of the mouth
is it at New Zealand?" is a question that might,
or aught we can see, involve very important
legal consequences. Are our judicial
functionaries quite sure how they would settle it?

         NEW WORK BY MR DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
          "Pickwick," "Copperfleld," &c.
     Now publishing, PART X., price 1s., of
              OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
             BY CHARLES DICKENS.
      IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
  With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

On the 26th of January will be published, bound in cloth,
                            price 5s. 6d.,
                THE TWELFTH VOLUME.