"If an indenture of lease bear date which is void or impossible, as the 30th of February, etc., if in this case the term be limited to begin from the date, it shall begin from the delivery, as if there had been no date at all.' In Armit v. Breame, 2 Ld. Raym. 1082, it is said : "If the award had no date, it must be computed from the delivery, and that is one sense of datus.' The question here is, What in this covenant is the meaning of datus? I consider that a party executing a deed agrees that the date therein mentioned shall be the date for purposes of computation. It would be very dangerous to allow a different construction of the word date; for then, if a lease were executed on the 30th of March, to hold from the date, that being the 25th, and the tenant were to enter and hold as if from that day, yet, after the expiration of the lease, he might defeat an ejectment on the ground that the lease was executed on a day subsequent to the 25th of March, and that he did not hold from that day. All the authorities give a definite meaning to the word date in general, but show that it may have a different meaning when that is necessary, ut res valeat. It has been said that the computation could not have been intended to be made from the date, if the twenty-four months had elapsed before the execution of the deed. That may be true, for then the intention of the parties, that the computation should not be made from the date, would have been apparent. Here the meaning of the deed is plain, and according to that a breach of covenant was committed before the commencement of the action. The plea is therefore bad."

(w) Therefore, a policy of insurance on goods to be shipped between "February 1st and July 15th does not cover goods shipped on the 15th of July. Atkins v. Boylston Fire and Marine Ins. Co. 5 Met. 439. In this case Wilde, J., said: "The construction of the policy seems to depend wholly on the true meaning of the word 'between.' This preposition, like many other words, has various meanings; and the question is, In what sense was it used in the present policy? The most common use of the word is to denote as intermediate space of time or place, and the defendant's counsel contends that it lease or sell property from and after a certain day, but before that time conveys it to another. (b) It might, however, seem more reasonable to permit such an action only where the capacity of the promisor could * not be restored before the day, or the promisee had received a present injury from the act of the promisor. (c)

* The rule which makes notes which become due on Sun day, without grace, payable on the Monday following, applies to all * contracts; thus, where a policy of insurance was conditioned for payment on or before Sunday at noon, and the party whose life was insured died in the afternoon of that day, and the premium was tendered on Monday, the insurers were held. (x) No one is bound to do any work in performance of his contract on Sunday, (y) unless the work by its very nature, or by express agreement, is to be done on that day, and can be then done, without a breach of the law. But if a contract is to be performed, or some act done in a certain number of days, and Sunday happens to come between the first and last day, it must be counted as one day, unless the contrary be clearly expressed. (z) If a party, bound to do a thing on a certain day, and therefore having the whole intermediate time, by some act distinctly incapacitates himself from doing that thing on that day, it seems that an action may be commenced at once without waiting for that day. As if a man promises to marry a woman on a future day, and before that time marries another, he has been held liable to an action before the day of performance arrives. (a) So if he engages to was so used in the present policy, and that the first day of February, and the fifteenth day of July, are to be both excluded. On the other hand, the plaintiff's counsel insists that both days are to be included; at least I so understood the argument. And we think it clear that both days must be included or excluded; for there is nothing in the contract manifesting the intention of the parties to include or exclude one day rather than the other. It is undoubtedly true that the word 'between' is not always used to denote an intermediate space of time or place, as the plaintiff's counsel remarked. We speak of a battle between two armies, a combat, a controversy, or a suit at law between two or more parties; but the word thus used refers to the actions of the parties, and does not denote locality or time. But if it should be said that there was a combat between two persons between two buildings, the latter word would undoubtedly refer to the intermediate space between the buildings, while the former word would denote the action of the parties. But it was argued that the word 'between' is not always used as exclusive of the termini, when it refers to locality. Thus, we speak of a road between one town and another, although the road extends from the centre of one town to the other; and this, in common parlance, is a description sufficiently intelligible although the road in fact penetrates each town. But if all the land between two buildings, or between two other lots of land, be granted, then certainly only the intermediate laud between the two lots of land or the two buildings would pass by the grant. And we think the word 'between' has the same meaning when it refers to a period of time from one day, month, or year, to another. If this policy had insured the plaintiff's property to be shipped between February ana the next July, it would clearly not cover any property shipped in either of those months. So we think the days mentioned in the policy are excluded."

(x) Hammond v. American Mutual Life Ins. Co. 10 Gray, 306.

(y) Sands v. Lyon, 18 Conn. 18; Avery v. Stewart, 2 Conn. 69; Cock v. Bunn, 6 Johns. 826, and note (a) in 2d edition; Salter v. Burt, 20 Wend. 205; Barrett v. Allen, 10 Ohio, 426; Link v. Clemmens, 7 Blackf. 479. But see, contra, Kilgour v. Miles, 6 Gill & J. 268; and see Stead v. Dawber, 10 A. & E. 57.