"Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those which VOL. I. THE LAW OF RAILWAYS, &c. LONDON: H. SWEET & SONS, 3, CHANCERY LANE, Law Publishers. 1888. PREFACE. TWELVE years have elapsed since the Editor brought out the Sixth Edition of this work, the present edition having been necessarily postponed until the appearance of the longdelayed Railway and Canal Traffic Act, which received the Royal Assent in August last. After careful consideration, the book is now issued in two volumes, the first comprising the "text," that is, the law as derived from the statutes and cases, and the second the Statutes at length in chronological order, with the Rules made under them, and a set of Forms and the Standing Orders of both Houses of Parliament, each volume having an index, and cross-references being frequently provided. The more important enactments, of which every word is of importance, such as the 2nd and 7th section of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, and the 27th section of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, are still printed at length in the text notwithstanding their repetition in the second volume, with the remaining sections of the Act from which they are taken, and full extracts are given, as in previous editions, from the more important judgments. The Board of Trade has just made and submitted to Parliament Rules of very great importance with respect to the "form and manner" of the classifications and schedules to |