In common law, the day is now supposed among lawyers to be from six in the morning to seven at night for service of notices; in Chancery till eight at night. And a service after such times at night
would be counted as good only for the next day. In the case of Liffin v. Pitcher, 1 Dowl. N. S. 767., Justice Coleridge said, "I am in the habit of giving twenty-four hours to plead when I give one day." Thus it will be perceived that a lawyer's day is of different lengths.
With regard to the time at which a person arrives at majority, we have good authority in support of Professor De Morgan's statement:
"So that full age in male or female is twenty-one years, which age is completed on the day preceding the anniversary of a person's birth, who till that time is an infant, and so styled in law."—Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 463.
There is no doubt also that the law rejects fractions of a day where it is possible:
"It is clear that the law rejecteth all fractions of days for the uncertainty, and commonly allows him that hath part of the day in law to have the whole day, unless where it, by fraction or relation, may be a prejudice to a third person."—Sir O. Bridgm. l.
And in respect to the present case it is quite clear. In the case of Reg. v. The Parish of St. Mary, Warwick, reported in the Jurist (vol. xvii. p. 551.), Lord Campbell said:
"In some cases the Court does not regard the fraction of a day. Where the question is on what day a person came of age, the fraction of the day on which he was born and on which he came of age is not considered."
And farther on he says:
"It is a general maxim that the law does not regard the fraction of a day."