The 31st of December was abolished in Manila in 1844.  Up to that time it had been retained as the discoverers fixed it by pure piety and patriotism.  Pope Alexander VI had issued a bull on the 4th of May, 1493, dividing the world into two hemispheres, which was quite correct, though it did not correspond to the secular lines of more modern days.  The gracious object of His Holiness was to keep the peace of the world by dividing the lands taken from the heathen between the Spaniards and Portuguese.  The East was to belong to Portugal.  The line was drawn to include Brazil.  The west was the hunting ground for heathen of Spain.  The claim of Spain for the Philippines was that they were west.  That was the way Magellenas (Magellan), the Portuguese navigator sailed through the straits named for him, and westward found the alleged Oriental islands, in which we, the people of the United States, are now so much interested.  When sailing into the sunset seas he picked up a day, and never discovered his error for he did not get home, and the Captain who navigated his ship did not know he was out of time with the European world until he got as far around as the Cape Verde Islands.  An added day was held in Manila, as a kind of affirmation of clear title, or trade mark of true righteousness, on the part of Spain.  It is one of the enduring puzzles in going around the world that a day is gained or lost, and it is not always a sure thing whether there is a loss or gain.  The perplexing problem is increased in its persistence if one sails westward over the 180 Meridian west from Greenwich, and goes beyond that line (which is not the one drawn by Alexander VI)—­say to the Philippines, and turns back, as is done in the voyage from San Francisco to Manila, and vice versa.

In this case, the mystery of the meridian becomes something dreadful.  One loses a day going west and gains one coming east, and it is a difficulty for a clear mind not to become cloudy over the account of loss and gain—­or perhaps we may say profit and loss, when the account is closed.  “The historian of the Philippine Expedition” lost a Wednesday going out, jumping from Tuesday to Thursday, and found an extra Thursday on the return—­celebrated his birthday on another day than that on which he was born, and had to correct the ship account of his board bill, by adding a day.  The Captain’s clerk had forgotten it because it was not in the Almanac.  Ship time begins a day at noon (and ends another), so when we crossed the meridian 180 degrees west at 2 p. m. by the sun, and the day was Thursday and to-morrow was Thursday also, the forenoon was yesterday by the ship.  Therefore, Thursday was yesterday, to-day and to-morrow on the same day.  The forenoon was yesterday—­from 12 to 2 p. m. was to-day—­and from 2 p. m. to midnight was to-morrow!  It is no wonder “the historian,” whose birthday was September the 2nd, found as he was on the west side of the meridian with the mystery that the folks