In English law, the only exact analogue to the doctrine of eminent domain is to be found in the prerogative right of the crown to enter upon the lands of subjects or to interfere with their enjoyment for the defence of the realm (see A.G. v. Tomline; 1879; 12 Ch. D. 214). No attempt is made to exercise this prerogative, and lands are acquired for state purposes by statute usually framed on or incorporating the Lands Clauses Acts (see [Compensation]). The French Code Civil secures compensation to the owner of property in cases of expropriation pour cause d’utilité publique (art. 545), and there is similar provision in Belgium (Const. Law, art. II.), Holland (Fundamental Law, art. 147), Spain (Civil Code, art. 349, and Law of 3rd May, 1841), and most other European states. It has been held in France that the right to compensation does not arise under art. 545 of the Code Civil where only a servitude d’utilité publique is created on a private individual’s land.
In addition to the authorities cited in the text, see Lewis, Eminent Domain (2nd ed., Chicago, 1900); Mills, Eminent Domain (2nd ed., St Louis, 1888); Randolph, Eminent Domain in the United States (Boston, 1894).
(A. W. R.)
EMINESCU, MICHAIL (1849-1889), the greatest Rumanian poet of the 19th century, was born on the 20th of December in Ipateshti near Botoshani, in the north of Moldavia. He was of Turco-Tatar origin, and his surname was originally Emin; this was changed to Eminovich and finally to the Rumanian form Eminescu. He was educated for a time in Czernowitz, and then entered the civil service. In 1864 he resumed his studies in Transylvania, but soon joined a roving theatrical company where he played in turn the rôles of actor, prompter and stage-manager. After a few years he went to Vienna, Jena and Berlin, where he attended lectures, especially on philosophy. In 1874 he was appointed school inspector and librarian at the university of Jassy, but was soon turned out through the change of government, and took charge, as editor in chief, of the Conservative paper Timpul (Times). In 1883 he had the first attack of the insanity hereditary in his family, and in 1889 he died in a private institution in Bucharest. In 1870 his great poetical talent was revealed by two contributions to the Convorbiri literare, the organ of the Junimist party in Jassy; these were the poems “Venera şi Madona” and “Epigonii.” Other poems followed and soon established his claim to be the first among the modern poets of his country. He was thoroughly acquainted with the chronicles of the past, had a complete mastery of the Rumanian language, and was a lover and admirer of Rumanian popular poetry. Influenced by these studies and by the philosophy of Schopenhauer, he introduced a new spirit into Rumanian poetry. Mystically inclined and himself of a melancholy disposition, he lived in the glory of the medieval Rumanian past; stifled by the artificiality of the world around him, he rebelled against the conventionality of society and his surroundings. In inimitable language he denounced the vileness of the present and painted in glowing pictures the heroism of the past; he also surprised nature in its primitive beauty, and he gave expression to stirring emotions in lyrics couched in the language and metre of popular poetry. He further proved himself an unsurpassed master in satire. Over all his poetry hangs a cloud of sadness, the sense of coming doom. Simplicity of language, masterly handling of rhyme and verse, deep thought and plastic expression made Eminescu the creator of a school of poetry which dominated the thought of Rumania and the expression of Rumanian writers and poets at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.
Five editions of his collected poems appeared after 1890. Some of them were translated into German by “Carmen Sylva” and Mite Kremnitz, and others have also been translated into several other languages. Eminescu also wrote two short novels, real poems in prose (Jassy, 1890).
(M. G.)
EMIN PASHA [Eduard Schnitzer] (1840-1892), German traveller, administrator and naturalist, was the son of Ludwig Schnitzer, a merchant of Oppeln in Silesia, and was born in Oppeln on the 28th of March 1840. He was educated at the universities of Breslau, Berlin and Königsberg, and took the degree of M.D. at Berlin. He displayed an early predilection for zoology and ornithology, and in later life became a skilled and enthusiastic collector, particularly of African plants and birds. When he was four-and-twenty he determined to seek his fortunes abroad, and made his way to Turkey, where, after practising medicine on his own account for a short time, he was appointed (in 1865) quarantine medical officer at Antivari. The duties of the post were not heavy, and allowed him leisure for a diligent study of Turkish, Arabic and Persian. From 1870 to 1874 he was in the service of the governor of northern Albania, had adopted a Turkish name (though not that by which he afterwards became so widely known), and was practically naturalized as a Turk.
After a visit home in 1875 he went to Cairo, and then to Khartum, in the hope of an opportunity for travelling in the interior of Africa. This came to him in the following year, when General Charles George Gordon, who had recently succeeded Sir Samuel Baker as governor of the equatorial provinces of Egypt, invited Schnitzer, who was now known as “Emin Effendi,” to join him at Lado on the upper Nile. Although nominally Gordon’s medical officer, Emin was soon entrusted with political missions of some importance to Uganda and Unyoro. In these he acquitted himself so well that when, in 1878, Gordon’s successor at Lado was deprived of his office on account of malpractices (Gordon himself having been made governor-general of the Sudan), Emin was chosen to fill the post of governor of the Equatorial Province (i.e. the old equatorial provinces minus the Bahr-el-Ghazal) and given the title of “bey.” He proved an energetic and enterprising governor; indeed, his enterprise on more than one occasion brought him into conflict with Gordon, who eventually decided to remove Emin to Suakin. Before the change could be effected, however, Gordon resigned his post in the Sudan, and his successor revoked the order.