duty, and if one or more of such persons or officers shall have died or have become mentally incapable of acting, or shall refuse or neglect to attend any such meeting, a majority or* the whole number of such persons or officers shall be a quorum of such board or body, and a majority of a quorum, if not less than a majority of the whole number of such persons or officers may perform and exercise any such power, authority or duty. Any such meeting may be adjourned by a less number than a quorum. A recital in any order, resolution or other record of any proceeding of such a meeting that such meeting had been so held or adjourned, or that it had been held upon such notice to the members, shall be presumptive evidence thereof.

§ 20. Service of notice upon body or board. When a notice is required to be given to a board or body, service of such notice upon the clerk or chairman thereof shall be sufficient.

§ 21. County clerk; register.- Any act done in pursuance of law by the register of a county shall be deemed to be a compliance with any provision of law authorizing or requiring such act to be done by the county clerk of such county, and any instru ment or writing filed, entered or recorded in pursuance of law in the office of a register of a county, shall be deemed to be a compliance with any provision of law authorizing or requiring such paper to be filed, entered or recorded, as the case may be, in the office of the clerk of such county.

§ 22. Village. The term village means an incorporated village. § 23. State; territory. The term State, when used generally to include every State of the United States, includes also every territory of the United States and the District of Columbia. The term territory when used generally to include every territory of the United States, includes also the District of Columbia.

§ 24. Public holiday; half holiday.— The term holiday includes the following days in each year: The first day of January, known as New Year's day; the twenty-second day of February, known as Washington's birthday; the thirtieth of May, known as memorial day; the fourth of July, known as independence day; the first Monday of September, known as labor day, and the

So in the original.

twenty-fifth day of December, known as Christmas day, and if either of such days is Sunday, the next day thereafter; each general election day and each day appointed by the president of the United States or by the governor of this State as a day of general thanksgiving, general fasting and prayer, or other general religious observance.

The term half-holiday includes the period from noon to midnight of each Saturday which is not a holiday.

25. Year.-Time shall continue to be computed in this State according to the Gregorian or new style. The first day of each year after the year 1752 is the first day of January, according to such style. For the purpose of computing and reckoning the days of the year in the same regular course in the future, every year, the number of which in the Christian era is a multiple of four, is a bisextile or leap year consisting of three hundred and sixty-six days, unless such number of the year is a multiple of one hundred and the first two figures thereof treated as a separate number is not a multiple of four, and every year which is not a leap year is a common year consisting of three hundred and sixtyfive days.

The term year in a statute, contract, or any public or private instrument, means three hundred and sixty-five days, but the added day of a leap year and the day immediately preceding shall for the purpose of such computation be counted as one day.

In a statute, contract or public or private instrument, the term year means twelve months, the term half-year, six months, and the term a quarter of year, three months.

Years held to consist of 365 days as to a transaction when the R. S. to that effect was in force, Hall v. Brennan, 140 N. Y. 409.

§ 26. Month.- In a statute, contract or public or private instrument, unless otherwise provided in such contract or instrument or by law, the term month means a calendar month and not a lunar month. A number of months after or before a certain day shall be computed by counting such number of calendar months from such day, exclusive of the calendar month in which such day occurs, and shall include the day of the month in the last

month so counted having the same numerical order in days of the month as the day from which the computation is made, unless there be not so many days in the last month so counted, in which case the period computed shall expire with the last day of the month so counted.

§ 27. Days; mode of computing days; night-time.- A calendar day includes the time from midnight to midnight. Sunday or any day of the week specifically mentioned means a calendar day. A number of days specified as a period from a certain day within which or after or before which an act is authorized or required to be done means such number of calendar days exclusive of the calendar day from which the reckoning is made. Sunday or a public holiday, other than a half-holiday, must be excluded from the reckoning if it is the last day of any such period, of if it is an intervening day of any such period of two days. In computing any specified number of days, weeks or months from a specified event, the day upon which the event happens is deemed the day from which the reckoning is made. The day from which any specified number of days, weeks or months of time is reckoned shall be excluded in making the reckoning. Night-time includes the time from sunset to sunrise. [Thus amended by Laws 1894, chap. 447, taking effect May 3, 1894.]

§ 28. Standard time.- The standard time throughout this State is that of the seventy-fifth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, and all courts and public officers, and legal and official proceedings, shall be regulated thereby. Any act required by or in pursuance of law to be performed at or within a prescribed time, shall be performed according to such standard time.

§ 29. Civil and Criminal Codes.-The term Civil Code means the Code of Civil Procedure. The term Criminal Code means the Code of Criminal Procedure.

3. Laws of England and of the colony of New York.— A statute of England or Great Britain shall not be deemed to have had any force or effect in this State since May first, seventeen hundred and eighty-eight. Acts of the legislature of the

colony of New York shall not be deemed to have had any force or effect in this State since December twenty-ninth, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight.

The resolutions of the Congress of such colony and of the Convention of the State of New York, shall not be deemed to be the laws of this State hereafter.

§ 31. Limiting the effect of repealing statutes.-The repeal hereafter or by this chapter of any provision of a statute, which repeals any provision of a prior statute, does not revive such prior provision. The repeal hereafter or by this chapter of any provision of a statute, which amends a provision of a prior statute, leaves such prior provision in force unless the amendatory statute be a substantial re-enactment of the statute amended. The repeal of a statute or part thereof shall not affect or impair any act done or right accruing, accrued or acquired, or liability, penalty, forfeiture or punishment incurred prior to the time such repeal takes effect, but the same may be asserted, enforced, prosecuted or inflicted, as fully and to the same extent as if such repeal had not been effected; and all actions and proceedings, civil or criminal, commenced under or by virtue of any provision of a statute so repealed, and pending immediately prior to the taking effect of such repeal, may be prosecuted and defended to final effect in the same manner as they might if such provisions were not so repealed. ་

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Before the enactment of this section it was held that the repeal of a repealing act revived the act repealed. Chard v. Holt, 136 N. Y. 39. In the case of Ottman v. Hoffman, 7 Misc. Rep. 714, this doctrine is applied notwithstanding the provisions of this section. In this case the court held that the omission in the repealing schedule of the General Corporation Law of 1892, chap. 687, of a statute included in the repealing schedule of the Stock Corporation Law of 1890, chap. 564, revived the statute so omitted, the repeal of which was thereby repealed.

The theory of this decision is that because this act, the Statutory Construction Law, was passed at the same session as the repealing act of 1892, the following section 33 precludes this section 31 of the Statutory Construction Law from affecting other statutes passed at the same Bession.

As to the effect, before the statute, of act repealing an amendatory act, see People v. Wilmerding, 136 N. Y. 363; White v. Inebriates' Home, 141 id. 123. A law put in the form of an amendment of a law which has

been repealed, which intelligibly expresses the legislative purposes and intent, is valid and will be upheld. People ex rel. Strough v. Canvassers, 143 N. Y. 84.

The saving clause of a statute, preserving repealed statutes in force as to existing situations, is not ex post facto or retroactive legislation, but on the contrary saves legislation from being retroactive. People v. Maxwell, 83 Hun, 157.

During the progress of the tax bill through the legislature it was suggested that this section had no force to save accrued rights, etc., under the laws repealed by the Tax Law. The case of Mongeon v. People, 55 N. Y. 613, was cited in support of this position. That case simply held that the provision of section 6 of Laws 1828, chapter 21, which took effect on the same day as the Revised Statutes, and provided that "no offense committed or penalty incurred previous to the time when any statutory provision shall be repealed shall be affected by such repeal," applied only to the laws repealed by the Revised Statutes, and was not intended to apply to subsequent repeals. But even if it had been so contended, it would not have been applicable to the then pending case, for the court declares, that the legislature clearly expressed its intent that penalties prescribed for past offenses under the earlier statute, should be saved by the later act.

In the case of Town of Wirt v. Supervisors, 90 Hun, 205 (1895), Judge Ward queries whether section 31 of the Statutory Construction Law does not apply only to the laws repealed thereby. He goes on further to say: "The legislature may properly, as it often does, define the meaning of the terms used and the purposes and objects of particular statutes that are in force to take effect contemporaneous with the statute of definitions: but it is difficult to see how the legislature of one year can so far comprehend the nature, extent and purposes of statutes to be thereafter enacted by other legislatures as to prescribe a rule in advance for their construction and operation." The judge then decides that admitting such force to section 31, it has no application to the pending suit, and dismisses the matter without further consideration. The opinion is dicta on this point, and was evidently expressed without a careful investigation. There seems to be no reason why, if the legislature can define terms, it cannot apply further rules of construction.

In the recent cases of People v. England, 91 Hun, 152 (1895), and People v. Maðill, id.,- decided by the same opinion - the court said, in reference to this section: 'The act did not attempt to interfere in any manner with future legislation, but simply prescribed a rule of construction applicable when not inconsistent with the general object of the subsequent statute, or the context of the language construed or other provision of the repealing law indicating a different intent." This case distinguishes Mongeon v. People, supra.

The decisions throughout the country upholding similar saving clauses are numerous and convincing.