RAILROAD AND CORPORATION REPORTS. BEING A COLLECTION OF THE CURRENT DECISIONS OF THE COURTS OF LAST RESORT IN THE UNITED STATES PER- EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY JOHN LEWIS, AUTHOR OF "A TREATISE ON EMINENT DOMAIN IN THE United StATES." VOLUME I. CHICAGO: E. B. MYERS AND COMPANY 1890. Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year A. D., eighteen hundred and ninety, BY JOHN LEWIS, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 359727 GENERAL PREFACE. The title page of this volume implies a series of publications, and some explanation of the scope, character and bulk of the contemplated work seems necessary. It is proposed to publish in the compass of three or four volumes a year, of the size and price of the present volume, a collection of all the more important and better considered decisions of the courts of last resort in the United States pertaining to the law of Railroads and Corporations, including the law of Municipal Corporations, Insurance, Banking, Carriers, Telegraph and Public Service Companies, Mutual Benefit Societies and Building and Loan Associations. The law of Eminent Domain and Negligence, so far as it pertains to Railroads and Municipal Corporations, will also be covered by the work. All the current decisions falling within the scope of the work and not reported in full will be embodied in the notes so as to place at the command of the practitioner, in a narrow compass and at a small expense, all the current decisions relating to the important topics of Railroads and Corporations. The notes will be made an important feature of the work, and it is the design, in the course of a few years, to make them a complete treatise on all the subjects embraced within the scope of the work and a complete repository of all the American decisions on those. subjects from the earliest reports to the present time, in so far as such decisions have any permanent value or general applicability. Of course a number of years must elapse before this design can be fully realized. In the meantime special care will be taken to treat, in the notes, of all new phases of corporation law and of those questions in corporation law which are prominent in the current litigation. The last few years have witnessed a marvelous increase in the number of corporations in this country, and the future is likely to witness a corresponding increase in litigation pertaining to such bodies and their stockholders. The development of that modern institution known as the "Trust," which is either a corporation or so connected with or akin to corporations as to fall properly within the scope of these reports, seems likely also to give rise to much litigation and to many novel, as well as important questions, which will require judicial determination. The number of American reports now exceeds four thousand volumes and they are increasing at the rate of more than one hundred and fifty volumes annually. It has, therefore, become impossible in most cases, and impracticable in all, for the practitioner to have all the reports in his private library. If the future is judged by the past, in respect of book making, it is appalling to contemplate the possible condition of the practitioner fifty years hence. The present scheme is offered as a possible solution of the difficulties which arise out of the multiplication of official reports. By extending the scheme to all those branches of the law which have been made specialties in practice, the lawyer may readily have in his possession, and at his command, in permanent form, all the current decisions pertaining to his particular line of practice. CHICAGO, October, 1890. JOHN. LEWIS. |