At the beginning of his administration Governor Beveridge of Illinois showed commendable staunchness in all matters involving punishment of criminals; he often mitigated the penalties of imprisonment and execution, regardless of the exhortations of large numbers of petitioners. But pardons soon became more common than during the terms of his predecessors--especially clemency for major criminals.

That life imprisonment in America is almost a farce in many instances, and that it has lost its horror as far as culprits are concerned, is well known, and of late Mr. Beveridge has labored assiduously to strengthen this pleasant feeling among the criminal gentry. Within the past five months he has given full pardons to seven murderers who were convicted for life. Of this allotment 2one served fourteen years; another, nine; the third and fourth, eight; the fifth and sixth, six; and the seventh, four years. In some of these cases which have been enumerated the intercession of some fairly prominent politician sufficed to soften His Excellency.

Whoever shows such compassion for desperate criminals should give commensurate consideration for the smaller fry.

During the first year of his administration, Mr. Beveridge pardoned about fifty convicts, and the following year approximately ninety. This represents sixty-five pardons from January 1, 1875, to May 22, 1875.

This surprising increase is allegedly due to the presence of many legislators at Springfield during the early part of the year, and requests for pardons supported by members of the State Legislature are almost always listened to by the Governor.

The Governor's forgiving poor devils who committed minor transgressions because of necessity or because of a neglected education we can condone and consider quite in order, since this is an era when great criminals are free, prosperous, and even highly respected. But among those whose sentences have been commuted by Beveridge one finds, aside from the aforesaid murderers, other serious criminals, killers who served but two or three years of an original twenty-four year sentence; robbers whose sentences were shortened eleven years, after they had been confined for only three years, and so on.

At present not less than five hundred petitions for clemency are recorded in the Governor's office, and, if Beveridge continues to be softhearted and obliging, soon a swarm of criminals will again besiege society.

A similar misuse of executive clemency is also found in other states of the Union, where such gubernatorial rights are established by law. A better state of affairs is to be found in those states where pardons can be obtained only by the collaboration and sanction of a special board.

An individual is less able to withstand importunate supplications than a board consisting of several persons, and an individual is more prone to succumb to political expediency than a body of men.

These instances of wholesale pardons, particularly those of Mr. Beveridge, represent political considerations, usually deference to the personal desires of a more or less influential politician, and as such are the more detestable because these decrees are not based on a forgiving spirit or benevolence, the noble characteristic of humanity. Such intercessions are the product of abominable selfishness; cool, deliberate, political speculation which anticipates subsequent aid from the politician who has made the petition; hence, a reward for the bestowal of liberty. The rotten abuse of the pardoning power which flourishes in this country, benefiting the most vicious criminals, is one of the main reasons for the death penalty. Even a "lifer" goes to the penitentiary with the glowing prospect that he will be free within a few years.

"Only the dead do not return"; only the execution of a murderer gives assurance to society that he will not reappear in their midst.