"accidentally swallowed"had made its way into a Christmas pudding. The date is shown on the tablet as 1747/8 because at this time the Gregorian calendar was in process of being adopted. Until then the legal and ecclesiastical year began on 25 March, and it was customary to give two dates for the period intervening between 1 January and 25 March, that of the old and that of the new year as January 1747-8.
