Volume 1 — From All The Year Bound. THE NICK OF TIME.

Let us suppose a case that might occur if it has not occurred.

John Mullet, immersed (say) in the button trade at Birmingham, has made money in business. He bequeaths his property by will, and is in due time gathered to his fathers. His two sons, Jasper and Josiah, take certain portions; and other portions are to go either to the family of Jasper or to that of Josiah, according as either one of those brothers survives the other. Jasper remains in England; but Josiah goes out to Australia, to establish something that may make his children great people over there. Both brothers, twelve thousand miles apart, die on the same day, May 1st, one at noon (Greenwich time), the other at noon (Sydney time). Jasper's children have been on pleasant cousinly terms with Josiah's; but they are aware of the fact that it would be better for them that Josiah should die before their own father, Jasper. Josiah's children, on the other hand, be they few or many, although they always liked uncle Jasper, cannot and do not ignore the fact that their interests would be better served by the survivorship of Josiah than that of Jasper. The two sets of cousins, therefore, plunge into a contest, to decide the question of survivorship between the two sons of old John Mullet.

This is one variety of a problem which the courts of law and equity are often called upon to settle. Occasionally the question refers to two persons who die at the same time, and in each other's company. For instance: Toward the close of the last century, George Netherwood, his children by his first wife, his second wife, and her son, were all wrecked during a voyage from Jamaica to England. Eight thousand pounds were left by will, in such a way that the relations of the two wives were greatly interested in knowing whether the second Mrs. Netherwood did or did not survive her husband, even by one single minute—a matter which, of course, could not be absolutely proved. Again, in 1806, Mr. Mason and one son were drowned at sea; his remaining eight children went to law, some of them against the others; because, if the father died before the son, £5,000 would be divided equally among the other eight children; whereas, if the son died before the father, the brothers only would get it, the sisters being shut out. A few years afterward Job Taylor and his wife were lost in a ship wrecked at sea; they had not much to leave behind them; but what little there was was made less by the struggles of two sets of relatives, each striving to show that one or other of the two hapless persons might possibly have survived the other by a few minutes. In 1819 Major Colclough, his wife, and four children, were drowned during a voyage from Bristol to Cork; the husband and wife had both made wills; and there arose a pretty picking for the lawyers in relation to survivorships and next of kin, and trying to prove whether the husband died first, the wife first, or both together. Two brothers, James and Charles Corbet, left Demerara on a certain day in 1828, in a vessel of which one was master and the other mate; the vessel was seen five days afterward, but from that time no news of her fate was ever received. Their father died about a month after the vessel was last seen. The ultimate disposal of his property depended very much on the question whether he survived his two sons or they survived him. Many curious arguments were used in court. Two or three captains stated that from August to January are hurricane {125} months in the West Indian seas, and that the ship was very likely to have been wrecked quite early in her voyage. There were, in addition, certain relations interested in James's dying before Charles; and they urged that, if the ship was wrecked, Charles was likely to have outlived by a little space his brother James, because he was a stronger and more experienced man. Alas for the "glorious uncertainty!" One big-wig decided that the sons survived the father, and another that the father survived the sons. About the beginning of the present reign, three persons, father, mother, and child, were drowned on a voyage from Dublin to Quebec; the husband had made a will, leaving all his property to his wife; hence arose a contest between the next of kin and the wife's relations, each catching at any small fact that would (theoretically) keep one poor soul alive a few minutes longer than the other. About ten years ago, a gentleman embarked with his wife and three children for Australia: the ship was lost soon after leaving England; the mate, the only person who was saved among the whole of the crew and passengers, deposed that he saw the hapless husband and wife locked in each other's arms at the moment when the waves closed over them. There would seem to be no question of survivorship here; yet a question really arose; for there were two wills to be proved, the terms of which would render the relatives much interested in knowing whether husband or wife did really survive the other by ever so small a portion of time.

These entangled contests may rest in peace, so far as the actual decisions are concerned. And so may others of a somewhat analogous nature. Such, for instance, as the case of an old lady and her housekeeper at Portsmouth. They were both murdered one night. The lady had willed all her property to the housekeeper, and then, the lawyers fought over the question as to which of the women died first. Or, the case of a husband who promised, on his marriage-day, to settle £1,200 on his wife "in three or four years." They were both drowned about three years after the marriage; and it was not until after a tough struggle in chancery that the husband's relatives conquered those of the wife—albeit, the money had nearly vanished in law expenses by that time. Or, the case of a man who gave a power of attorney to sell some property. The property was sold on the 8th of June, but the man was never seen after the 8th of the preceding March, and was supposed to have been wrecked at sea; hence arose a question whether the man was or was not dead on the day when the property was sold—a question in which the buyer was directly interested. The decisions in these particular cases we pass over; but it is curious to see how the law sometimes tries to guess at the nick of time in which either one of two persons dies. Sometimes the onus of proof rests on one of the two sets of relations. If they cannot prove a survivorship, the judgment is that the deaths were simultaneous. Sometimes the law philosophizes on vitality and decay. The Code Napoleon lays down the principle that of two persons who perish by the same calamity, if they were both children, the elder probably survived the younger by a brief space, on account of having superior vital energy; whereas, if they were elderly people, the younger probably survived the elder. The code also takes anatomy and physiology into account, and discourses on the probability whether a man would or would not float longer alive than a woman, in the event of shipwreck. The English law is less precise in this matter. It is more prone to infer simultaneous death, unless proof of survivorship be actually brought forward. Counsel, of course, do not fail to make the best of any straw to catch at. According to the circumstances of the case, they argue that a man, being usually stronger than a woman, probably survives her a little in a case of {126} simultaneous drowning; that, irrespective of comparative strength, her greater terror and timidity would incapacitate her from making exertions which would be possible to him; that a seafaring man has a chance of surviving a landsman, on account of his experience in salt-water matters; that where there is no evidence to the contrary, a child may be presumed to have outlived his father; that a man in good health would survive one in ill health; and so forth.

The nick of time is not less an important matter in reference to single deaths, under various circumstances. People are often very much interested in knowing whether a certain person is dead or not. Unless under specified circumstances, the law refuses to kill a man—that is, a man known to have been alive at a certain date is presumed to continue to live, unless and until proof to the contrary is adduced. But there are certain cases in which the application of this rule would involve hardship. Many leases are dependent on lives; and both lessor and lessee are concerned in knowing whether a particular life has terminated or not. Therefore, special statutes have been passed, in relation to a limited number of circumstances, enacting that if a man were seen alive more than seven years ago, and has not since been seen or heard of, he may be treated as dead.

The nick of time occasionally affects the distribution or amount of property in relation to particular seasons. Some years ago the newspapers remarked on the fact that a lord of broad acres, whose rent-roll reached something like £40,000 a year, died "about midnight" between the 10th and 11th of October; and the possible consequences of this were thus set forth: "His rents are payable at 'old time,' that is, old Lady-day and old Michaelmas-day. Old Michaelmas-day fell this year on Sunday, the 11th instant. The day begins at midnight. Now, the rent is due upon the first moment of the day it becomes due; so that at one second beyond twelve o'clock of the 10th instant, rent payable at old Michaelmas-day is in law due. If the lord died before twelve, the rents belong to the parties taking the estates; but if after twelve, then they belong to and form part of his personal estate. The difference of one minute might thus involve a question on the title to about £20,000." We do not know that a legal difficulty did arise; the facts only indicate the mode in which one might have arisen. Sometimes that ancient British institution, the house clock, has been at war with another British institution, the parish church clock. A baby was born, or an old person died, just before the house clock struck twelve on a particular night, but after the church clock struck. On which day did the birth or death take place—yesterday or to-day? And how would this fact be ascertained, to settle the inheritance of an estate? We know an instance (not involving, however, the inheritance to property) of a lady whose relations never have definitely known on which day she was born; the pocket watch of the accoucheur who attended her mother pointed to a little before twelve at midnight, whereas the church clock had just struck twelve. Of course a particular day had to be named in the register; and as the doctor maintained that his watch was right, there were the materials for a very pretty quarrel if the parties concerned had been so disposed. It might be that the nick of time was midnight exactly, as measured by solar or sun-dial time: that is, the sun may have been precisely in the nadir at that moment; but this difficulty would not arise in practice, as the law knows only mean time, not sun-dial time. If Greenwich time were made legal everywhere, and if electric clocks everywhere established communication with the master clock at the observatory, there might be another test supplied; but under the conditions stated, it would be a nice matter of Tweedledum and Tweedledee {127} to determine whether the house clock, the church clock, or a pocket watch, should be relied upon. All the pocket watches in the town might be brought into the witness-box, but without avail; for if some accorded with the house clock, others would surely be found to agree better with the church clock.

This question of clocks, as compared with time measured by the sun, presents some very curious aspects in relation to longitude. What's o'clock in London will not tell you what's o'clock in Falmouth, unless you know the difference of longitude between the two places. The sun takes about twenty minutes to go from the zenith of the one to the zenith of the other. Local time, the time at any particular town, is measured from the moment of noon at that town; and noon itself is when the sun comes to the meridian of that place. Hence Falmouth noon is twenty minutes after London noon, Falmouth midnight twenty minutes after London midnight; and so on. When it is ten minutes after midnight, on the morning of Sunday, the 1st of January, in London, it is ten minutes before midnight, on Saturday, the 31st of December, at Falmouth. It is a Sabbath at the one place, a working-day at the other. That particular moment of absolute time is in the year 1865 at the one, and 1864 at the other. Therefore, we see, it might become a ticklish point in what year a man died, solely on account of this question of longitude, irrespective of any wrong-going or wrong-doing of clocks, or of any other doubtful points whatever. Sooner or later this question will have to be attended to. In all our chief towns, nearly all our towns indeed, the railway-station clocks mark Greenwich time, or, as it is called, "railway time;" the church clocks generally mark local time; and some commercial clocks, to serve all parties, mark both kinds of time on the same dial-face, by the aid of an additional index hand. Railway time is gradually beating local time; and the law will by-and-by have to settle which shall be used as the standard in determining the moment of important events. Some of the steamers plying between England and Ireland use Greenwich time in notifying the departures from the English port, and Dublin time in notifying those from the Irish port; a method singularly embarrassing to a traveller who is in the habit of relying on his own watch. Does a sailor get more prog, more grog, more pay, within a given space of absolute time when coming from America to England, or when going from England to America? The difference is far too slight to attract either his attention or that of his employers; yet it really is the case that he obtains more good things in the former of these cases than in the latter. His days are shorter on the homeward than on the outward voyage; and if he receive so much provisions and pay per day, he interprets day as it is to him on shipboard. When in harbor, say at Liverpool, a day is, to him as to every one else who is stationary like himself, a period of definite length; but when he travels Eastward or Westward, his days are variable in length. When he travels West, he and the sun run a race; the sun of course beats; but the sailor accomplishes a little, and the sun has to fetch up that little before he can complete what foot-racers call a lap. In other words, there is a longer absolute time between noon and noon to the sailor going West, than to the sailor ashore. When he travels East, on the contrary, he and the sun run toward each other; insomuch that there is less absolute time in the period between his Monday's noon and Tuesday's noon than when he was ashore. The ship's noon is usually dinner-time for the sailors; and the interval between that and the next noon (measured by the sun, not by the chronometer) varies in length through the causes just noticed. Once now and then there are facts recorded in the newspapers which bring this {128} truth into prominence—a truth demonstrable enough in science, but not very familiar to the general public. When the Great Eastern made her first veritable voyage across the Atlantic in June, 1860, she left Southampton on the 17th, and reached New York on the 28th. As the ship was going West, more or less, all the while, she was going with or rather after the sun; the interval was greater between noon and noon than when the ship was anchored off Southampton; and the so-called eleven days of the voyage were eleven long days. As it was important, in reference to a problem in steam navigation, to know how many revolutions the paddles made in a given time, to test the power of the mighty ship, it was necessary to bear in mind that the ship's day was longer than a shore day; and it was found that, taking latitude and longitude into account, the day on which the greatest run was made was nearly twenty-four and a half hours long; the ship's day was equal to half an hour more than a landsman's day. The other days varied from twenty-four to twenty-four and a half. On the return voyage all this was reversed; the ship met the sun, the days were less than twenty-four ordinary hours long, and the calculations had to be modified in consequence. The sailors, too, got more food in a homeward week than an outward week, owing to the intervals between the meals being shorter albeit, their appetites may not have been cognizant of the difference.

And this brings us back to our hypothetical Mullets. Josiah died at noon (Sydney time), and Jasper died on the same day at noon (Greenwich time). Which died first? Sydney, although not quite at the other side of the world, is nearly so; it is ten hours of longitude Eastward of Greenwich; the sun rises there ten hours earlier than with us. It is nearly bed-time with Sydney folks when our artisans strike work for dinner. There would, therefore, be a reasonable ground for saying that Josiah died first. But had it been New Zealand, a curious question might arise. Otago, and some other of the settlements in those islands, are so near the antipodes of Greenwich, that they may either be called eleven and three-quarter hours East, or twelve and a quarter hours West, of Greenwich, according as we suppose the navigator to go round the Cape of Good Hope or round Cape Horn. At six in the morning in London, it is about six in the evening at New Zealand. But of which day? When it is Monday morning in London, is it Sunday evening or Monday evening in New Zealand? This question is not so easy to solve as might be supposed. When a ship called at Pitcairn Island several years ago, to visit the singular little community that had descended from the mutineers of the Bounty, the captain was surprised to find exactly one day difference between his ship's reckoning and that of the islanders; what was Monday, the 26th, to the one, was Tuesday, the 27th, to the other. A voyage East had been the origin of one reckoning, a voyage West that of the other. Not unlikely we should have to go back to the voyage of the Bounty itself, seventy-seven years ago, to get to the real origin of the Pitcairners' reckoning. How it may be with the English settlers in New Zealand, we feel by no means certain. If the present reckoning began with some voyage made round Cape Horn, then our Monday morning is New Zealand Sunday evening; but if with some voyage made round the Cape of Good Hope, then our Monday morning is New Zealand Monday evening. Probabilities are perhaps in favor of the latter supposition. We need not ask, "What's o'clock at New Zealand?" for that can be ascertained to a minute by counting the difference of longitude; but to ask, "What day of the week and of the month is it at New Zealand?" is a question that might, for aught we can see, involve very important legal consequences.

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