WELL, WHAT D'YOU KNOW!!
·FIRST OF A NEW SATURDAY FEATURE:
What Happened To Those 11 Days?
T
When September 14 fell the day after September 2 HIRTY days hath September ...... body knows the old rhyme. But September should have thirty daya?
Every-
who sald
It was our old friend Julius Caesar. Nearly two thousand years ago, with the help of his astronomers, he fixed the lengths of our months and devised the leap year. His system is called the Julian Calendar.
Caesar who said the Earth took 365 days and a quarter to go round the sun - thought his calendar would keep up with Nature, if he added an extra day to it every fourth year. Unfortunately, his advisers' reckonings were not quite accurate. The world circumnavigutës the sun in a few minutes less than 365-and-a-quarter days. APRIL IN MAY
AS
3 years passed, the Julian Calendar feli more and more behind. Shakespeare wrote of roses and lilies bloom- ing in April, but the Elizabethan April was our May.
During Shakespeare's lifetime-in 1682, to be exact— Pope Gregory XIII suggested an amendment to Caesar's system. Ten days were to be dropped out, and there were generally to be no leap years at the end of centuries. Many countries.
Scotland agreed to Gregory's plan. adopted it in 1600.
Some nations, however, did not change to the Gregorian Calendar. England was one of them. So there were two calendars in Europe, gradually growing more and mere oul of step. That didn't matter as much as it would these days, because people travelled less then, and they were not so tinte-conscious as we are. ELEVEN DAYS OUT
BUT by the middle of the eighteenth century, the Juliann Calerular was eleven days "out of inte," so to speak. It was Lord Chesterfield, a leading personality of the period, though, as he admitted, "an after stranger to astronomical calculutions" who finally
the persunder! English Government to change to Pope Gregory's system. So, in 1762, Engbund adopted the Gregorian Calendar. The change-over necessitated dropping eleven days from one of the months and that veur. September 14 fell the day after September 21
the
Uneducated people could not understand why month was being curtailed, They felt that, in some way. their lives were being shortened. There were riots. Molis gathered, shouting, "Give us back outr eleven days! Deaths occurred at Bristol,
Until that time, our financial year bad always started on March 25 the oid New Year's Day. But the au- thorities didn't want people to think they were paying The a year's taxes on only 364 days, so they ended the financin] year of 1752 cloven days late, And from 1763 to the present time, the financial year has begun on April 5.
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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER
10,
1956.
Page
A locked, deserted church in North London recalls the astonishing Agapemonites and
THE BOGUS
BOGUS MESSIAH'
Agapemonite Church
at Clapton who trims the lawns and sweeps the paths?
own
ANDWICHED be coming" and 'his own divine Smyth Pigott slood 'before tween a trolley-bus mission n a second St John, his believers in the Ark of the
the
Baptist. A depot and a block of legacy from his wife, Martha terms.
handsome Covenant and in unequtubenl
announced his flats in North Lon- Freeinan, enabled him to build divinity. don stands one of the capl- the Agnemone at Four Forks, The congregation poli cn their knees at his words and tal's most intriguing enig- Ppart of Bently Spaxton
Agapernene means, simply," uttered loud exclamations of mus a church that is "Abode of Love," a term of the joy. Tho
spread lik bolted and barred, where no highest spiritual significance at wildfire; hundreds.of people service has been held since the outact, but one that was to came to the church hoping to convey a very much more entch a glimpse of this strange the early 19204.
material meaning in the years man who
ara God.
chred coll himself
Hitler's wor is not the reason for the barbed wire which tops the surrounding iron railings nor has van- dalism played any part in the closing of this strange house of worship. ~ No sign- board is there to tell who is the responsible minister, or the church's even mination or patron saint.
to follow.
mounted
Funda, were waning, and the older members were dring." One of the Agapémonite customs was to bury their dead in un upright position. Death was 'a disgrace, since the whole, sect was supposed to be immortal, "and to die was an admission of
sin
Polleoment Botoro
Smyth Pigott, by then a bent and tired old man of about 75, died in March 1927. The funeral was conducted by his successor, Douglas Hamilton.
Security The Agapione was won "" The following Sunday 0,000
measures werO full force
in Hourishing community, and a people waited from dawn until
at the Agapemone. Ono repor
reporter wealthy one at that. Every evening to see this self-styled
wrote:
"Barbod-wire fences and new member pooled his or her
"Messiah" arrive. About 200 Rev. John Hugh Smyth Pigott warning notices seemed to have of these managed to get inside announced his own divinity. sprung up all round the grounds
church while F++++++* pollee
during the tried
night control the
ploketed the estate angry mob
outside. Whon Bridgwater reglatrar, Sidney W. being chased through a hedge Smyth Pigolt arrived he was Hook, was called to the Agape- by a watcher was able to soo greeted with kirsen, rund
when the mone on September 18,
Agapemonite women in hundreds of people swarmed
the same details of parentage their
long
whito nowing over the iron railings, but the were recorded. This child was garments and veils, and noticed doors were barred to them. After the service Smyth Pigalt was escorted by polleemen to His carriage, but as he drove to his nearby home, Cedar Lodge, he dodged an angry shower of
bricks and even
One of the
deno World's Strang-
est Stories by
C. D. T. BAKER-CARR
The only visible cluq is carved over the porghway
-
+*+*+HTİ
stones, brellas.
A contemporary
This
++ stated:
Messiah...would
the words "Love in Judg- ment and Judgment unto Victory." Few who live near this strange extinco « stone's throw north of Clap- ton Common-know it to be worldly wealth to live a com- the Ark of the Covenant, munal life. One rich London one-time spiritual home of rohant brought with him his
whole fortune. nnd becanic mounted one of the most astonishing Prince's verled butler! religious sects ever known~-~- The Agapemonites.
Meat of
Wonch
טריות
the
sinthed Power,
After the birth of Power the action and ordered that Smyth Bishop of Bath and Wells took Pigolt be arraigned before a Consistory Court on charges of immorality.
here and there a woman in a
sky-blue robe
died calling himself just plain In his will Smyth Pigott, who Smyth, left all his possessions some £3,000 to Slater Ruth. Found guilty het, was ignored. The num- Hig legal wife, who lived until
bers of the faithful were thin- ning out rapidly. Hamilton was 78 when he died in 1942.
J09
Today visitors to Spaxton can
the stili
Agapemone-ma triple-gablod mansion with A host of outbuldings behind a high surrounding wall There live live the remnants of the sect. Smyth Pigott'a strange rites have long since ceased. Present head of the aging
anfrocked report Cathedral in March. 1909. self-styled
Publlo attention was focused probably on the Agapemone. It was re- have been thrown into the vealed that there were nearly pond at Clapton Common but
the protection of
100 women there, and only a the for
handful of men. The inmates were divided into three classco Unpopularity!
in London drove
-the menials, the middle him to Somerset and the sane-
classes and the favoured, the inmates
For were tuary of his Agapemone.
Sister Ruth nearly all from n perlod the scandal died Zown,
was "Spiritual Oulskie the Ark of the Cove- substantirŭ familles, and Prince though from time to time there
Bride-in-Chief, and Mrs Kath- maktst the grass is trins and tidy, WILD involved in several wet
erine Smyth Pigott lived in her recruits to the paths swept clean. But Tawsults brought by the girls strange sect,
own apartments, there is a brooding sileure in- relatives. He bad, indeed. to
One stern critic wrote: " is side the iron railings.
the headquarters of the cruel- lest delusion that England lis
19 the original "Spiritual scen for many a century."
Bride" Sister Rutis, now in And a headquarters it was, her 80s. With her ilve some 15 for Smyth Pigott had established Agapemonites.
eir bellef is sincere and branČIL
in Scandinavia
Their cven America. When unshakable. But the buge, too persistent he nail-studded doorway stays to to Norway for a rst firmly closed to all strangers. and to seek new adherents, There is curtain of slience were unable to that not even the telephone police
But we know can penetrate, the that
Smyth Pigolt set up
The
the
ce
A
Covenant the
James
was
return thousands et
pounds. Even Bộ họ could afford to travel abroad in magniscent In July 1904, a very attrac couch-and-six attended by uve Kiri called Rută Annie liveried outriders urtd a pack Preece. went of hounds,
Smyth
leaving
ילון
Pigott
Tho
secto
take action-for
Ark⚫ uf
to live with bulk by
Br his
wife, founders of the Agapemonites,
But Prince's hundreds of whom he had married on and á renegade Church of England devoted followers were deeply August 14, 1806. Miss Preece W
ullet
shocked in 1899. Prince who was one of three sisters whose Henry Prince The
father had left had bousted immortality-dled.
them movemai
comTM farteri
ir 1838 by
He was buried in the grounds of fortably provided for. A year band of
at later there rect's headquarters lylaity students of St David's the
at
cno news of the Prince Spaxton, College. Lampeter
at the Agapemone of a Agape birth assumest leadership Bud they montes without a leader.
The child. were originally known the succession lay between Charles
AN
The records at Somerset House *Izmputer Brethren." The Stokes Read. an ex-stock- note that on June 23, 1905,
lleation service of the Ark breker, and the Rev John male chlid
Was DOTTA to Ruth of the Cayman was heki in Hugh Smyth Pigott, Smyth Annie Preece (of independent May, 1800, aad attended by Pigott took over and Read be- means) and John Hugh Smyth delegates from
over the came the sect's secretary.
Pigott (priest in holy orders). world
Up to this time the Ark cơ The name given to the baby boy Prite Wis curate in the the Covenant aroused no more was Glory. little Somervel partsh of Interest in Clapton thun uny Charlinch, and It was there other group of Nonconformist. Alat he Arst manifested his But on Sunday, September 7, betters in an Imminent "second 1902, camo the bombshell....
Diamond Watches
And that was not all. On August 20, 1908, "Sister Ruth" --as she was now referred to gave birth to another boy.
The
--
apparently
into
community
*
every woman went Agapemone of her own free trust fund for the maintenance
of will, and chose to stay.
both the Agapemone in Smyth Pigott
the Spaxton DT
and the Art of the "Master," 19 he liked
To be Covenant
In Claptont shortly called-and Sister Ruth became before he
ho died the proud parents of a daugh-
There is still a minor riddle ter, born on May 5, 1910, whom Claptoni Who tends the closed church? Who trim the they named Lifc.
lawns and sweeps the paths? Who holds the key to unlock one of London's modern mysTM teries?
In time notoriety began to have its effect; fewer rich re- erults came forward to offer themselves and their mongy to the cause of the Agapemonltes.
nt
(COPYRIGHT)
by
JAEGER-LECOULTRE
* The Most Treasured Gift of All ⋆
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