Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

COPYRIGHT, 1894,

BANKS & BROTHERS.

PREFACE.

Police powers arising under the law of overruling necessity are no new topic in any practical administration of sovereign authority. "For the commonwealth a man shall suffer damage as for the saving of a city or town," as an old case has it, and when we raise "bulwarks for the defense of the realm, every subject hath a benefit by it." Such bulwarks are raised by the police laws, but often the line of their defenses is met before the subject is aware of them, or recognizes the dangers to be faced.

Special instances appear on many sides, and within the last few years they have had an extraordinary growth in frequency and number, they have been set out in many new laws, illustrated by numerous decisions, and have become increasingly difficult to group, and to follow, except as we have the aid of some connected study of them, and an inquiry through the adjudications which distinguish their sources, connections, and principles, and afford rules for guidance and observation.

Such is the object proposed in this work; to examine and report the facts as we have them at the present day, and to present them in a useful and serviceable form, in the hope that it may be of some benefit to others engaged in like research, and at least lighten the labor of searching through many reports for isolated precedents of cases, new only in the form or manner of occurrence, to any one interested in them.

NEW YORK, March 9, 1894.

W. P. P.

« PreviousContinue »