would prove fruitless.

Should I pardon him, the doors of all the State prisons of the State might as well be opened and let every prisoner go forth.'

The woman sobbed and prayed, that 'his Honor would relent, and put her husband, as honest a man as ever lived, out of prison.'

"The Governor, although much annoyed, remembering the case so well, and knowing the poverty of the family, asked the woman how she was enabled to travel so far with all her children. She re

plied:

"Your Honor, I worked until I earned eight dollars.'

"He said: 'My good woman, that small sum would hardly have brought you so far with all your children.'

"Your Honor,' she said, 'I paid five dollars for myself, and the railroad men charged me nothing for the children, and I have three dollars left.'

"Have your children eaten to-day?'

"No, your Honor.'

"The Governor then asked her how she expected to go back with only three dollars.

"Touching the bell (for a different purpose than the one which one of his predecessors now uses it), he said to his messenger, after giving her some money: "Take this woman with her children to my house; see that they are well fed, and then take them to the cars.'

"After the woman with her five children had left the room, he said Judge, this is only one case among many; do you wonder that I begged our friends, last September, to give me rest.'

"After a pleasant chat with him, I retired with the idea that the position of Governor of this State was no sinecure."

During his first term, Governor Seymour was struck with the defects of our criminal code, and the want of some principle in the management of our prisons, which was calculated to reform their inmates He found that our courts were forced in many cases by the letter of the law to impose unreasonable terms of punishment, which led to numerous applications for pardon. He was also satisfied that no criminal could be made a better man unless some inducement was held out which would encourage and strengthen

PRISON DISCIPLINE.

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him in his efforts to overcome his evil propensities. He held that Hope was the great reformer. He, therefore, made exertions to introduce a new principal into our criminal code. Something had been done in that direction before, but the obscurity of the law made it a dead letter. He urged upon the Legislature as a measure of relief to the pardoning power and as a measure of mercy to the convict, that the latter should be allowed to shorten his term by his own good conduct. This would be attended by a double advantage. It would not only tend to make him conduct himself with propriety, but when he went out of prison with the proofs that his good behavior had shortened his term, it would give him a sense of his own worth, which must be felt before he would have self-confidence to enter upon a course of virtue and of industry. This mode of ending his imprisonment would also give to the world proof of his reformation. By the provisions of this law, if the sentence is for two years, good conduct would strike off a month in each year; if it was for a longer term, up to five years, it would strike off two months in each year; if for a longer period than five years, up to ten years, it would strike out three months in each year; for all terms beyond ten years, good conduct would strike out four months of imprisonment in each year.

By this system of graduation hope was given to all. It is believed that this plan of rewards is the beginning of a reform in our prisons which will hold out every encouragement to their unfortunate inmates, while it will not interfere with that certainty of pun

ishment so necessary to restrain vice. This measure has been hailed with satisfaction by those who have given thought to prison discipline; but it was only by persistent and personal appeals that the governor was able to secure its adoption by the Legislature. Indeed, it was once rejected by one branch. All who have any thing to do with the management of our prisons testify to the great good which this method has wrought out.

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It has been charged as a matter of reproach to Governor Seymour that he called bad men his friends," but he has reason to feel a just pride in the fact that, in this matter, he has proved himself to be the true friend of the unfortunate and unhappy, although guilty inmates of our prisons. We warn the modern Pharisee that our Saviour was reproached with being the friend to publicans and sinners, and that He even saluted him as "friend" who came at the head of armed men to betray him to a cruel death.

During the past year, a convention to revise the State Constitution, which met at the city of Albany, and was composed of a decided majority of Republicans, through one of its Standing Committees, solicited the views of Governor Seymour upon the exercise of the pardoning power. He at once responded to their call and appeared and was heard before the Committee, who in their report referred at length to the experience and views of the Governor upon this branch of executive duty.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PUBLIC FAITH.

Ir is remarkable at this time, when financial questions are so much discussed, and when the Democrats are charged with bad faith to the public creditors, that certain facts of history have been overlooked. When Government has agreed to pay in gold, the Democratic party has demanded payment in gold. When bonds are payable in legal tender paper, popularly called "greenbacks," they demand they shall be paid in legal tender notes, and they declare that the true interpretation of the contract is that when it does not provide that bonds shall be paid in coin, they ought, in justice, to be paid in lawful money of the United States. Many of the leading Republicans hold this to be the true construction. Their Convention passed an equivocal resolution on the subject, and their candidates can not be made to say what their views are. On the Democratic side there is frankness, on the Republican side there are evasions. The Republicans mean to cheat either the bondholder or the tax-payer. Yet a clamor is raised that the Democrats are repudiators, while the only cases of direct, open violation of contracts to pay in coin are those made by Republican action, or by virtue of Republican laws. It is admitted that the legal

tenders which will be given in payment of the bonds are worth much more than the money given to the Government for these bonds when they were sold. When the bonds of New York, which were to be paid in gold, and for which the creditor had given gold, were due, the Republicans refused to pay even the interest in any thing but "greenbacks," which were then worth only forty cents on the dollar. Yet the specie borrowed of the creditors of the State was used to build canals which are paying great revenues to the treasury of New York. In vain Governor Seymour appealed to a Republican Legislature not to break the contract. Every Democrat voted to keep faith with the men who had loaned specie funds. Every Republican Senator voted in favor of repudiation. We give an extract from Governor Seymour's appeal:

'Principle and policy unite to urge the action I recommend to you. It is the only way in which the State can in truth fulfill its contracts. It is the only way in which the State can keep itself in a position to go into the market hereafter decently as a borrower. The State is even now in the market for money to pay its bounties and volunteers. The whole amount of the appropriation I urge upon you will be more than repaid in the first negotiation the State may make, by the enhanced price of its securities. Not only our future credit, but our immediate gain will be served by adhering now to the strictest letter of our contracts. The saving proposed by not paying in coin is small and temporary, while the dishonor is lasting, and the pecuniary loss consequent upon this dishonor will be in the end enormous.

"Bad faith on the part of New York, the leading member of our confederacy, must inevitably weaken very greatly, if it do not destroy, the credit of our Government securities in foreign markets. Compared with the importance of this State's action in its effects upon the credit of the Government, the cost of paying our interest in coin is insignificant.

"Aside from all considerations of interest or policy, our duty, in