djustment of a boundary upon
new lines of demarcation it must be expected that some temporary
difficulties in business transactions will be encountered, but all
history shows that such difficulties soon adjust themselves. Legal
enactments will finally determine the precise boundaries of the
several sections. If different laws respecting many other affairs of
life may exist on either side of a State or national boundary line,
with positive advantage or without material inconvenience, why should
laws respecting time-reckoning be an exception? Coins and measures are
distinguished by their names. So, also, may standards of time be
distinguished.

The adoption of standard time for all purposes of daily life, based
upon meridians fifteen degrees apart, would practically abolish the
use of exact local time, except upon those meridians. Numerous
circumstances might be related demonstrating how very inaccurate and
undetermined was the local time used in many cities in this country
before the recent change.

Except for certain philosophical purposes, does the inherent advantage
claimed in the use of even approximately accurate local time really
exist? Would the proposed change affect any custom of undoubted value
to the community? These questions have been answered in the negative
by the experience of Great Britain since January 13, 1848, of Sweden
since January 1, 1879, and of the United States and Canada since
November 18, 1883.

Greenwich time is exclusively used in Great Britain, and differs from
mean local time about eight minutes on the east and about twenty-two
and a half minutes on the west. In Sweden the time of the fifteenth
degree of east longitude is the standard for all purposes. It differs
from mean local time about thirty-six and a half minutes on the east
and about sixteen minutes on the west. In the United States the
standards recently adopted are used exclusively in cities like
Portland, Me., (33,800 inhabitants,) and Atlanta, Ga., (37,400
inhabitants,) of which the local times are, respectively, nineteen
minutes and twenty two minutes faster than the standard, and at Omaha,
Neb., (30,500 inhabitants,) and Houston, Tex., (16,500 inhabitants,)
each twenty-four minutes slower. At Ellsworth, Me., a city of six
thousand inhabitants, a change of twenty-six minutes has been made.
Nearly eighty-five per cent. of the total number of cities in the
United States of over ten thousand inhabitants have adopted the new
s