any of their notes, is insufficient, not being an allegation of presentment. But it is conceived, notwithstanding the observations of the Court in the last case, that it cannot be necessary for the holders of the notes of a bank which had notoriously stopped payment, to go through the empty form of carrying notes up to the bank doors, and then carrying them home again.

A presentment for payment is now decided not to be necessary in order to charge a man who guarantees the due payment of a bill or note. And it had before been held that where a party was guarantee for the vendee of goods, who had accepted a bill for the amount, and then became bankrupt, the notorious insolvency of the vendee was sufficient so far to excuse the drawer as to enable him to charge the guarantee, unless it could have been shown that the bill would have been paid, if duly presented, though it would have been otherwise in an action on the bill.

If the drawee has shut up his house, the holder must inquire after him, and attempt to find him out.

If the drawee be dead, presentment must be made to his personal representatives; and, if, he have none, then at his house.

If the holder die, presentment should be made by his personal representatives.

In treating of the time when presentment is to be made, it will be necessary to consider, first, how, on the various sorts of bills, time is computed, and then on what bills, and to what extent, days of grace are allowed.

In acts of Parliament, in deeds, and in legal proceedings, the word month is taken to mean a lunar, and not a calendar month, unless there be something in the context to indicate the latter sense; but in matters ecclesiastical, and by the custom of trade, in bills and notes, a month is deemed to be a calendar or solar month. The inequality in the length of the respective months may sometime occasion a difficulty; but it is said to be a rule not to extend the time at which the bill falls due beyond the month in which it would have fallen due, had that month been of the length of thirty-one days. Thus, if a bill at one month be drawn on the 31st of January, it will be due on the 28th of February, and, with the days of grace, payable on the 3rd of March.

When a bill is drawn at a certain number of days after date, or after sight, those days are reckoned exclusively of the day on which the bill is drawn or accepted, and inclusively of the day on which it falls due.

We have already observed, that on a bill the words "after sight" are equivalent to "after acceptance;" for sight must appear in a legal way. If a note be made payable at sight, it must be presented, before action brought against the maker.

Usance is the period which in early times it was usual to appoint between different countries for the payment of bills.-When usance is a month, half usance is always fifteen days, notwithstanding the unequal length of the months. An usance between London, Aleppo, Altona, and Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brabant, Bruges, Flanders, Geneva, Germany, Hamburgh, Holland and the Netherlands, Lisle, Middleburgh, 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.

It is said that all the countries with which the English are in the habit of negotiating bills, computed their time by the new style, with the single exception of Russia. 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. Petersburgh, 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 then be reckoned according to the style of the place on which it is drawn.

Days of grace are so called, because they were formerly allowed the drawee as a favour; but the laws of commercial countries have long since recognised them as a right. The number of these days varies in different places. Mr. Kyd 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, out of the fair-time, four days.

"Leipsic, Naumburg and Augsburg, five days.

"Venice, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Middleburgh, Antwerp, Cologne, Breslau, Nuremburg and Portugal, six days.

"Dantzic, Koningsberg and France, ten days.

"Hamburgh and Stockholm, twelve days.

"Naples, eight; Spain, fourteen; Rome, fifteen; and Genoa, thirty days.

"Leghorn, Milan and some other places in Italy, no fixed number. "Sundays and holidays are included in the respite days, at London, Naples, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Middleburg, Dantzic, Koningsberg and France; but not at Venice, Cologne, Breslau and Nuremberg. At Hamburgh, 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.

At Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and other parts of Brazil, fifteen days. At St. Petersburgh, ten days on bills after date; three days on bills at sight, ten days on bills received and presented after they are due. At Trieste and Vienna, three days on bills after date.

The three days grace allowed in this country are reckoned exclusive of the day on which the bill falls due, and inclusive of the last day of grace.

Where there are no days of grace, and the bill falls due on a Sunday, Christmas-day, Good Friday, public fast or thanksgiving day, or where the last of the days of grace happens on such a day, the bill becomes payable on the day preceding; and if not then paid, must be treated as dishonoured.

A presentment for payment before the expiration of the days of grace is premature, and will not enable the holder to charge the antecedent parties.

Days of grace are allowed on promissory notes, as well as on bills. They are allowed, whether the bill or note be made payable on a certain event, or at a certain day, or at a certain number of years, months, weeks or days, after date or after sight, or at usance, or by instalments. But they are not allowed on bills or notes payable on demand. Whether days of grace are allowed on bills payable at sight, seems yet undecided. The weight of authority has been considered to incline in favour of such an allowance.

If days of grace are to be allowed on bills payable at sight, the time when they should be presented has already been considered, in the Chapter on Presentment for Acceptance. If not, then they stand on the same footing as bills payable indefinitely, and bills payable on demand. We have already seen that the time which bills payable after sight have to run is computed from the date of the acceptance; a note payable at a certain period after sight is payable at that period after presentment for sight. 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 acceptance, supra protest.

Bills and notes payable on demand, and checks, must, be presented within a reasonable time. What is a reasonable time seems to be a law. And such a decision is conformable with the principles of law. "Reasonable time," says Lord Coke, "shall be adjudged by the discretion of the justices before whom the cause dependeth; and so it is of reasonable fines, customs and services, upon the true state of the case depending before them; for reasonableness in these cases, belongeth to the knowledge of the law, and therefore, to be decided by the justices. Quam longum esse debet non definitur in jure, sed pendet ex discretione justiciariorum. And, this, being said of time, the like may be said of things incertaine, which ought to be reasonable; for nothing that is contrary to reason is consonant to law." Besides, the opinions of jurors have been so various, that there can be no certainty on the subject, unless it be held to be a question of law. Yet we have seen, that what is a reasonable time within which to present for acceptance a bill drawn payable after sight has been held a question of fact to the jury, and the same point has been ruled as to the time of presentment for payment of a note payable on demand.

A man taking a bill or note payable on demand, or a check, is not bound, laying aside all other business, to present or transmit it for payment the very first opportunity. It has long since been decided, in numerous cases, that, though the party by whom the bill or note is to be paid live in the same place, it is not necessary to present the instrument for payment till the morning next after the day on which it was received. And later cases have established, that the holder of a check has the whole of the banking hours of the next day within which to present it for payment.

Negotiable instruments payable on demand may be distributed into

several classes, and the time within which they ought to be presented for payment, and the consequences of a failure to make due presentment, are not precisely the same in every class.

Negotiable instruments payable on demand are common commercial bills of exchange, checks, common promissory notes, bank notes, and bankers' cash notes and bankers' bills.

It is conceived that a common bill of exchange payable on demand ought, if the parties live in the same place, to be presented, the next day after the payee has received it. If the bill must be sent by post to be presented, it ought to be posted on the day next after the day on which it was received, and that the person who receives it by post, that he may present it should do so on the day next following the day on which he receives it.

Such, also, are the general rules regulating the presentment of bankers' checks, which are really bills of exchange; but as checks on bankers are now extremely common it has been thought convenient to discuss the presentment of checks more in detail in the Chapter relating to checks.

A common promissory note payable on demand differs from a bill payable on demand, or a check, in this respect: the bill and check are evidently intended to be presented and paid immediately, and the drawer may have good reasons for desiring to withdraw his funds from the control of the drawee without delay; but a common promissory note payable on demand is very often originally intended as a continuing security, and afterwards indorsed as such. Indeed it is not uncommon for the payee, and afterwards the indorsee, to receive from the maker interest periodically for many years on such a note. And sometimes the note is expressly made payable with interest, which clearly indicates the intention of the parties to be, that though the holder may demand payment immediately, but he is not bound to do so. It is, therefore, conceived that a common promissory note payable on demand, especially if made payable with interest, is not necessarily to be presented the next day after it has been received, in order to charge the indorser; and that, when the indorser defends himself on the ground of delay in presenting the note, it will be a question for the jury, whether, under all the circumstances, the delay of presentment was or was not unreasonable.

Bank notes and bankers' cash notes differ again from other promissory notes in this, that they are intended to pass from hand to hand, and are issued that they may circulate as money, returning to the bank as seldom as possible; but they are not intended as a continuing security in the hands of any one holder. Therefore, a man who takes bank notes or bankers' cash notes in payment must present them or forward them for presentment the day after he receives them, in order to enable him, in the event of the bank failing, to sue the person from whom they were received on the consideration that was given for them. But, as it would be inconsistent with the very nature and design of such notes, that every man who takes them should present them for payment, it is sufficient to exonerate the taker from the charge of laches, if he circulated them within the time within which he ought otherwise to have presented them.

THE SUB-TREASURY.

From the New York Courier and Enquirer, October, 1848.

To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer:

It is understood and believed that Secretary Walker, now here, has agreed to purchase Treasury Notes to the amount of $800,000 at par, the sellers agreeing to take them back again, whenever called upon. The operation is equivalent to a Loan of the same amount, and will be equally effective in making the Sub-Treasury disgorge. A direct loan would be contrary to law. Considerable relief to the money market is expected from this transaction.

The community owe to you a debt of thanks for the vigilance with which you have exposed the late extraordinary act of the Secretary of the Treasury in making a loan of $800,000 to a certain broker in this city, upon Treasury notes. We know that it is denied that it is a loan, but that the transaction is a bona fide purchase under the law of January, 1847, which says "The Secretary of the Treasury is further authorised to make purchase of the said notes at par, for the amount of the principal and interest due at the time of purchase on such notes, and so much of the unappropriated money in the Treasury as may be necessary for that purpose, is hereby appropriated for paying the principal and in

terest."

"Sec. 12. That in lieu of the notes authorised by this act which may be redeemed, others may be issued. Provided, however, the amount of such notes outstanding, together with the stock issued by virtue of the thirteenth and sixteenth sections of this act shall not exceed the sum of twenty-three millions of dollars."

Now here we have the recorded authority under which the Secretary acted, and if he has really and truly made the purchase, as is pretended, without any understanding as to their re-issue, then is he sustained by the law in what he has done, and cannot be brought to account; but, how stands the fact? A certain broker in Wall street possesses $800,000 of Treasury notes, the market price of which at the time the transaction was consummated, was three and one-quarter per cent. above par. Is it at all probable, that said broker would sell to the government his Treasury notes at three and one-quarter per cent. below the price the community would have paid him for them? Does it not, evidently and on the face of it, imply some understanding between the Secretary and the broker, that he was to be remunerated in some way or other for the immense sacrifice of 31 per cent. on $800,000 Treasury notes? We think the common sense view of the matter makes it apparent that it was a jobbing affair between the Secretary and the broker, with the ultimate view of promoting the speculative interests of one or perhaps of both! We do not believe that any man in business is willing to sacrifice $24,000, for the purpose of relieving the money market, and it seems to us too palpable a subterfuge for the Secretary to shield himself behind the law which authorizes him to purchase Treasury notes at par, particularly if there existed at the time any, the slightest understanding between the high contracting parties, that they were to be returned at