84 TRANSPORTATION 



life and the needs of intercourse of all classes of society; (2) that 

 its usage is conceded to all with equal rights; (3) that it must be 

 administered and developed as an integral system. 



In regard to the means of communication, first, the mail service 

 was influential upon the development of public rights. From the 

 institutions of messengers, which were, in the Middle Ages, estab- 

 lished by cities, universities, trade-unions, a regular mail service 

 by mounted messengers was developed in France and in Germany 

 during the second half of the fifteenth century. It was organized by 

 the rulers of these countries, serving at first only the official com- 

 munication, but soon after private persons were permitted to make 

 use thereof. A formal concession of the privilege to establish mail 

 service in the Empire, as an imperial right, was made in 1570 in 

 Germany, and in 1615 the office of general postmaster in the Empire 

 was bestowed, as Reichsregal und Leben, upon the family of Taxis. 

 They had, from then on, to maintain the mail service by their own 

 means, but were entitled, in return for it, to keep the intakes. This 

 Reichsregal was infringed upon by the rulers in favor of establishing 

 government's mail service, and since the seventeenth century it is 

 generally acknowledged that the right of establishing and con- 

 ducting mail service is a privilege of the Empire or the ruler. In 

 the second half of the seventeenth century the edict was made for- 

 bidding the dispatching of letters or persons in any other wise than 

 through the postal service. 



A new epoch in the development of the rights of transportation 

 begins with the railroads. While Knies, fifty years ago, expressed 

 his astonishment that the influence of the railroads upon jurispru- 

 dence had scarcely been observed, we possess nowadays an extended 

 science of railroad rights. It comprehends the relation of the rail- 

 roads to the state and to the provinces or communities, the conces- 

 sion and organization of the railroads, the acquisition of railroad 

 estate, railroad service, and transportation, and the change of rail- 

 roads. Both the private and the public rights are equally influ- 

 enced by it. Generally the railroad supremacy of the state is recog- 

 nized as an extension of its supremacy of roads. The railroads are 

 considered as public ways and public institutions. The state has 

 (1) the right of concession; the state decides if the construction of 

 a railroad can be permitted, in case of a certain enterprise. The 

 state cares for the proper construction of the railroad. (2) The 

 right of supervision of the construction, operation, and adminis- 

 tration of the railroads. The state grants to the undertaker the 

 right of expropriation to acquire the necessary estate, but the state 

 is also concerned in a just indemnification. 



The safety of the buildings and means of operation of a railroad 

 are matters of public interest; construction and operation are subject 



