preservation of the health of its inhabitants."[2] And even by private
parties, land may be taken for ways of necessity in many States, and
for drains, flumes, and aqueducts by the constitutions of the arid
States.

[Footnote 1: Book I, p. 139.]

[Footnote 2: These provisions are collated in "Federal and State
Constitutions," p. 159.]

At common law, of course, a man or a set of men, who happen to be
neighbors, would have had no right to take my land for a private way,
or for drainage or irrigation purposes, however beneficial to their
land; still less to take water from my stream across my land to their
fields. But this precise thing can be done in an increasing number of
States, although it has been held unconstitutional in the courts
of one or two of the far Western States, and has even yet not been
decided by the Supreme Court of the United States as to the powers of
the Federal government. Under the broad definition given in Idaho
and Wyoming, you can probably take land to establish a municipal
coal-yard, or dispensary, or anything else that the legislature might
suppose to be for the general health or benefit of the people. Yet
a hotel company would not, as yet, be considered a public use, nor,
probably, a private recreation park. And land taken for one use may be
subjected to other and totally distinct uses without giving any new
right of damages, as was decided in Massachusetts, at least, when land
given or taken for an ordinary city street was afterward occupied by a
steam railroad. A notable limitation on the use of streets, however,
we find imposed by the statutes of New York and many other States,
which provide that no railway shall be placed therein without the
consent of a majority of the property owners or abutters. There is
frequent legislation providing that the betterment taxes collected in
case of public improvement shall not exceed the damages given for the
property actually taken. In the last two or three years there has been
an extension of the doctrine, authorizing cities and towns to take
more land than is actually needed, for the purpose of convenience, or
in order to get a better bargain, and then sell the surplus; but such
laws may be unconstitutional.

Land may, of course, be taken for all municipal purposes, including
public squares or parks, playgrounds, reformatories and penal
institutions, levees, ditches, drains, and for cemeteries; and the
right is being granted to private compani