Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by HENRY E. MILLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. St. Louis: Press of G. I. Jones and Company. PREFACE. OVER five years ago, it was suggested to the author that the Law of Eminent Domain was of sufficient importance and extent to justify a separate treatise upon the subject. Further examination developed the fact that the practitioner, in investigating almost any branch of the subject, would be compelled to apply himself to the multitudinous volumes of reports. The only collections of authorities to be found were in the law periodicals, and in occasional chapters in text-books devoted to constitutional law, the law of railways, and of municipal corporations. On a careful search into the cases on the subject, both in the American and English reports, the author found more than three thousand two hundred decisions, which are cited in the following pages, many of the decisions being cited several times. If the author had indulged liberally in quotations from decisions, the volume could have been easily swelled to twice its present size; but it was considered preferable, in most cases, to state the ultimate conclusions of the court, in a form as condensed as would be consistent with perspicuity. Some subjects related to the Law of Eminent Domain were suggested as proper to be considered in a treatise upon this subject. Among these were the acquisition of rights in real property by reason of the dedication |