LIBRARY UNIVERSITY H1397 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by EDWARD L. PIERCE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON & SON, PREFACE. I SUBMIT this volume to the profession, with the hope that it will be found to contain a compact statement of the Law of Railroads. My first book, written with the same view, was published in 1857. At that time the subject had not been treated in this country, and even the Law of Torts had not been made the special topic of any treatise either in England or the United States. I have made attempts at different times to prepare a new edition of the earlier book, but various engagements prevented the continuous study which was required for the purpose. Meantime, the subject developed so much in several directions, and the matter which was at hand in 1857 became so overlaid with later decisions, that, in order to make a complete statement of the law as it is, it became necessary to undertake a new treatise, instead of preparing a new edition of the earlier one. The treatment of the subject is embarrassed by the multitude of authorities. The profession is exacting in requiring an author to put at its ready command all the decisions of all the States, thus making it possible to trace at once those bearing closely on a pending question on which advice is to be given or a brief prepared. No principle of selection which he could adopt would prove generally satisfactory to those whom he endeavors to assist. The result is that the mere citation of cases, in the space they fill, rivals in some chapters the text itself. There will be no remedy for this disproportion between text and notes until there is greater moderation in writing and publishing opinions, many of which are, without apparent reason, extended to a great length, or are mere repetitions of what the same court has already affirmed. If the present disposition to multiply reports should continue to the extent to which it has prevailed for the last twenty years, it is fearful to contemplate what an enormous mass of material, in the shape of judicial opinions, is to accumulate in time to come.1 Such fecundity has no parallel in any other profession or department of human thought. I have made few extracts from judicial opinions, for the reason that, being found in the reports, it is generally superfluous to repeat them in a treatise. When the author has stated the doctrine of the decisions in his text, and made full references, he ought not, as it seems to me, to enlarge his work, merely for the purposes of amplification and illustration, with matter which is already before the public and is in no respect the fruit of his own mind. To this rule there are exceptions; and I have departed from it, though reluctantly, in a few instances, particularly in the chapter on "The Powers of the Corporation," where an attempt is made to simplify the discussion to which the modern doctrine of ultra vires has given rise. The scope of the book does not admit a critical treatment of particular cases. Their aggregate number is so great, and is increased to such an extent from year to year, that no one case has the relative importance which a leading case had at an earlier period of the law. The most that an author can do in writing a book like this, which includes chapters on various divisions of the law, and treats questions many of which provoke strenuous and perpetual controversy in the courts, is to give the resultant force of the decisions; and, having stated the 1 The reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Illinois for 1875 fill five volumes and a part of another, making an aggregate of 3,678 pages. |