COMING OF AGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3339, 13 March 1918, Page 13

COMING OF AGE.

It may perHap3 not be generally known that a person legally attains the age of 21 (or any other term of years) on the day preceding the 2lst (or other; birthday. The question was raised recently in the English High Court of Justice in relation to the case of a military officer who died of wounds in France on July .21, 1916. He was born on July 22, 1891, and took vested interests, in his father's residuary, estate "on attaining the age of 25 years." It was contended on behalf of other interested parties .that the term must be interpreted ill the ordinary popular reuse, and that the deceased had not attained his twenty-fifth year at the time of his death. Incidentally it was pointed out that in Acts of Parliament relating to insurance and other matters it was enacted that a person should not be deemed to have attained any specified term of years until the commencement of the anniversary of the day of birth. The court, however, was so .clearly satisfied that in law the specified age was attained on the day preceding the birthday that counsel appearing to support that viewwere not called upon to argue the question. It occurs to ue that a nice point might arise in relation to the hemispherical differences in nominal time. A person born in New Zealand on July 22, 1891, would be legally 25 on July 21, 1916, but he might have 'gone to England and died there on July 20, 1916 (according to the English date) at exactly the same_ time (reallv, not nominally) as if he had died in New "Zealand on Jnjy 21. Would he, in law, have attained "the age of 25 years? The law, it may be observed, takes no account of fractions of days. The specified day of the month is everything, and July 20 is not July 21. Even "daylight saving" might complicate the matter!