SUBJECT to the other provisions of the Code, a bill or CHAPTER note must be duly presented for payment (a). If it be not so presented, the drawer and indorsers shall be discharged (b) (except, as we have seen, the drawer of a cheque, who suffers no damage, Code, s. 74). The other (a) Code, s. 45. provisions seem to be those in ss. 46, relating to excuse of presentment, delay, &c. ; 86 and 87, as to promissory notes. (b) Code, s. 45. The acceptor or maker still, in general, remain- (1). XVII. CHAPTER When to be made if payable on demand; if not on demand. Three days of grace. Sundays. Bank holidays. Time, how computed. When the bill or note is payable on demand, then subject to the other provisions of the Code presentment must be made within a reasonable time after its issue in order to render the drawer liable, and within a reasonable time after its indorsement in order to render the indorser liable. In determining what is a reasonable time, regard shall be had to the nature of the bill, the usage of trade with regard to similar bills, and the facts of the particular case; it is therefore a mixed question of law and fact (c). When the bill or note is not payable on demand, presentment must be made on the day on which it falls due; to be determined as follows (d). Three days of grace are in every case (unless otherwise provided in the bill or note) added to the time of payment, and the bill or note falls due on the last of these. If the last day of grace fall on a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday, or Public Fast, the bill is due and payable on the preceding business day. When the last day of grace is a bank holiday (other than Christmas Day or Good Friday), or is a Sunday, and the second day of grace is a bank holiday, the bill is due and payable on the succeeding business day. When a bill is payable at a fixed period, as say a certain number of days after date, after sight, or after the happening of a specified event, the period or those days are (c) The other provisions seem to be those in ss. 46 and 86. A note payable on demand is more leniently treated, as to when it is to be considered as overdue, than other instruments payable on demand, and consequently perhaps a more liberal interpretation will be given to reasonable time; neglect to present bank notes has been held excused if they were circulated within a reasonable time, Camidge v. Allenby, 6 B. & C. 373; and bankers' cash notes, if they be returned within a reasonable time, Rogers v. Langford, 1 C. & M. 637 ; Robson v. Oliver, 10 Q. B. 704; and see Code, s. 36 (3). (d) Code, s. 14. Bank holidays as regulated by 34 Vict. c. 17, and 38 Vict. c. 13, s. 2, are for England and Ireland: Easter Monday, Whit Monday, first Monday in August, 26th of December, if a week day (if not the 27th). And in Scotland: New Year's Day, Christmas Day (if either be Sunday, then Monday), Good Friday, the first Monday in May, and in August. By the French Code a bill that would otherwise fall due on a fête day, established by law, falls due on the preceding day. Code de Commerce, liv. i. tit. 8, art. 134. See, too, Tassell v. Lewis, 1 Lord Ray. 743. XVII. reckoned exclusively of the day from which the time is to CHAPTER run, and exclusively of the day on which it falls due, or rather would fall due but for the days of grace (e). When a bill is payable at a fixed period after sight, the time begins to run from the date of acceptance, if it be accepted, and from the date of noting or protest if the bill be noted or protested for non-acceptance or non-delivery (e). The term month in a bill or note means calendar month (ƒ). When a bill drawn in one country is payable in another, the due date thereof is determined according to the law of the place where payable (g). Usance is the period which, in early times, it was usual to Usance, appoint between different countries for the payment of bills, When usance is a month, half usance is always fifteen days (h), notwithstanding the unequal length of the months. An usance between London, Aleppo, Altona, and Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brabant, Bruges, Flanders, Geneva, Germany, Hamburg, Holland, and the Netherlands, Lisle, Middleburg, Paris, or Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Rouen, is one calendar month: between London and the Spanish or Portuguese towns, two calendar months; between London and Genoa, Venice, or places in Italy, it is three calendar months (i). It is said that all the countries with which the English Old and new are in the habit of negotiating bills, compute their time by style. the new style, with the single exception of Russia (j). In the case of bills drawn in a place using one style, and payable in a place using another, if drawn payable at a certain period after date, they fall due as they would have done in the country in which they were drawn. Thus, a bill drawn Feb. 1, in London, on St. Petersburg, at one month, would be payable, without the days of grace, on March 1, in our calendar; and, as it was drawn on Jan. 21, old style, it would fall due on Feb. 21, in the Russian calendar. But, if the bill were drawn payable at a day certain, or at a certain period after sight, the time must (e) Code, s. 14 (2) and (3); Campbell v. French, 6 T. R. 200; Coleman v. Sayer, 1 Barnard. 303. After sight on a bill, means after acceptance; but on a note it means that the note must again be exhibited to the maker before he can be called on to pay. Holmes v. Kerrison, 2 Taunt. 323. (f) Code, s. 14 (4). So in Acts (h) Marius, 93. (2) Chitty, 10th ed. 254 Bayley, 203. (j) Bayley, 201. CHAPTER then be reckoned according to the style of the place on XVII. which it is drawn (k). Days of countries. Days of grace are so called, because they were formerly grace. What allowed the drawee as a favour: but the laws of commercial in different countries have long since recognized them as a right. The number of these days varies in different places. Mr. Kyd, in his Treatise on Bills of Exchange, gives the following table, which, however, has been altered in many places since his day, by the substitution of the French Code, and other circumstances :: "Great Britain, Ireland, Bergamo, and Vienna, three days. "Frankfort (1), out of the fair time, four days. "Leipsic, Naumburg, and Augsburg, five days. "Venice (m), Amsterdam (n), Rotterdam (n), Middleburg, Antwerp (n), Cologne, Breslau, Nuremberg, and Portugal (o), six days. "Dantzic, Königsberg, and France (n), ten days. "Naples (n) eight; Spain, fourteen (p); Rome, fifteen; and Genoa, thirty days. "Leghorn (9), Milan, and some other places in Italy, no fixed number. "Sundays and holidays are included in the respite days, at London, Naples (n), Amsterdam (n), Rotterdam (n), Antwerp (n), Middleburg, Dantzic, Königsberg, and France (n); but not at Venice, Cologne, Breslau, and Nuremberg. At Hamburg, the day on which the bill falls due makes one of the days of grace; but it is not so elsewhere." Three days of grace are allowed in North America, at Berlin, and in Scotland (r). At Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and other parts of Brazil, fifteen days. At St. Petersburg, ten days on bills after date, three days (k) Beawes, 444; Bayley, 202. (n) Abolished by the French (0) Now, it is believed, in Lisbon and Oporto fifteen days on domestic, and six on foreign bills. (p) But eight days of grace only are allowed on inland bills. At Cadiz only six days are allowed. (q) Now none. (r) See Ferguson v. Douglas, 6 Bro. P C. 276. on bills at sight, ten days on bills received and presented CHAPTER after they are due. At Trieste and Vienna, three days on bills after date (s). XVII. A presentment for payment before the expiration of the Presentment days of grace is premature, and will not enable the holder before expira tion of days to charge the antecedent parties (t). of grace. allowed. Days of grace are allowed on promissory notes as well as on what inon bills (u). They are allowed, whether the bill or note be struments made payable on a certain event, or at a certain day (v), or days of grace at a certain number of years, months, weeks, or days, after date or after sight, or at usance, or by instalments (w). But they are not allowed on bills or notes payable on demand (x). Whether days of grace were at common law allowed on bills payable at sight, was undecided. The weight of authority had been considered to incline in favour of such an allowance (y); but now, since 34 & 35 Vict. c. 74, ss. 2, 4 (repealed), bills and notes drawn after August 14th, 1871, payable at sight or on presentation, are payable on demand, and therefore no days of grace are allowed, and Code, ss. 10 and 14 are to the same effect. We have already seen that the time which bills payable of a bill payafter sight have to run is computed from the date of the able after sight. acceptance (z); a note payable at a certain period after sight is payable at that period after presentment for sight (a). So, if some time after a refusal to accept, a bill payable after sight be accepted supra protest, the time is calculated, not from the date of the exhibition of the bill to the drawee, but from the date of the noting for non-acceptance (b). (s) See Freese's Cam. Comp. Part 2. (t) Code, s. 45 (1); Wiffen v. Roberts, 1 Esp. 261. (u) Brown v. Harraden, 4 T. R. 148. (v) Ibid., and so held in America. Griffin v. Goff, 12 Johns. Rep. 423. (w) Oridge v. Sherborne, 11 M. & W. 374; Carlon v. Kenealy, 12 M. & M. 139. If the whole be payable on default of payment of any one instalment the note is still a good promissory note. Ibid., and see Miller v. Biddle, Exch., M. T. 1855; and Monetary Advance Co. v. Cater, 20 Q. B. D. 685; 57 L. J. 463. Are three more days of grace to be allowed? (x) Bayley, 241; Chitty, 10th ed. 261; Code, s. 14. (y) Beawes, 256; Kyd, 10; Bayley, 198; Dehers v. Harriott, 1 Show. 163; Coleman v. Sayer, Barn. R. 363; 2 Stra. 829; Janson v. Thomas, Bayley, 6th ed. 241; 3 Doug. 421; Dixon v. Nuttall, 1 C., M. & R. 307; 6 C. & P. 320; and see Selwyn, N. P. 7th ed. 344. (z) Campbell v. French, 6 T. R. 200; 2 H. Bl. 163. (a) Sturdy v. Henderson, 4 B. & Ald. 592. (b) Williams v. Germaine, 7 B. & C. 468; 1 M. & R. 394, formerly from date of acceptance |