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ELECTRICAL CASES

BEING

A COLLECTION OF ALL THE IMPORTANT CASES (EXCEPT-
ING PATENT CASES) DECIDED IN THE STATE AND
FEDERAL COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES
FROM 1873 ON SUBJECTS RELATING TO

THE TELEGRAPH, THE TELEPHONE, ELECTRIC
LIGHT AND POWER, AND OTHER PRAC-
TICAL USES OF ELECTRICITY ́ ́2

WITH ANNOTATIONS

EDITED BY

WILLIAM W. MORRILL,

Author of "Competency and Privilege of Witnesses," "City Begge

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Entered according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and nin

BY MATTHEW BENDER,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

PRESS OF WILLIAM BOYD.
ALBANY, NY.

PREFACE.

IN absence of some reasonable inducement, lawyers cannot be expected to burden their already congested shelves with new series of reports. The very multiplicity of reported decisions, however, seems to furnish a field for collections of cases upon special subjects, scattered as the individual cases are through the volumes of reports, official and otherwise, of some fifty jurisdictions in this country alone.

It goes without saying that we are living in an age of Electricity, and that we are in fact just entering it, for though the electro-magnetic telegraph has been in successful operation over forty years, the telephone, the electric light, the electric railroad and other uses of electricity as a motive power date back considerably less than half that time; and it is evident that the importance of this agency is only beginning to be developed and appreciated.

It stands to reason, even without practical demonstration, that in connection with the development of this new agent a great deal of litigation must have arisen, and new and vexatious legal questions be constantly arising and reaching the courts for decision. Such is, indeed, the case; and yet, although some text-books have been published relating to the whole or portions of the subject, no attempt has been made to collect the decisions for convenient reference, with the single exception of Allen's Telegraph Cases, published in 1873, when the telegraph was the only electrical device in use.

Meantime a large number of important decisions have been made. And it is purposed to collect and publish them in a continuous series, beginning with about the year 1873, of which this is to be the first volume; the others to follow promptly until brought down to date, and then as cases shall accumulate, which it is believed will soon be at the rate of a volume each year.

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