A Tardy Bid

The most rampantly partisan ana recklessly extravagant Legislature that ever met in Lansing will adjourn at high noon tonight. There may be some knightly men and true among the majority in the Legislature, but they have been altogether too modest to earn honorable mention for themselves. There are others who will go home with the serene consciousness that this has been a remunerative session. They will probably be able to pay off a mortgage on two or buy a corner lot with the net results of their legislative experience. They belong to the number whom Lowell has immortalized: Bz, for instance, thet rubber tree fii-st begun bearin' When p'litikle conBhunces cnm into wearin'. The Legislature has passed a few good bilis with remarkable reluctance, and some infamous bilis with suspicious alacrity. If it should shed tears adequate to repentance for its corrupt and indecent votes you would have to wade through both houses with rubber boots. Wendell Phillips once said of certain politicians that they would jump across the everlasting pit for a dollar, and run the risk of falling in. About a score or more of ouf retiring legislators have shown a willingness to undertake the job, but they have asked a higher price. The only thing that has not been done is to introduce a bilí expunging from the Commandments the injunction " Thou - shalt not steal." It was not necessary, however, to resort to such extreme measures, because the Ten Commandments have long been regarded in the capitol as a dead letter and inoperative. A good deal of the winter's legislation can be accounted for only on the assumption that a strong majority do not believe in future retribution. There is hardly an enactment of this legislature that is not tinctured with partisanship. King Caucus has pressed the button on nearly every important measure, and the Czar and his satellites at both ends of the capítol have done the rest. Aside from passing the rankest partisan bilis that have ever been presented to any legislature, and voting the most lavish appropriations known in the history of the state, the majority has done nothing except to kokow before the Czar or listen with rapt admiration to the somnolent eloquence of Demosthenes McGinley. Tateum has been the Hyperion of ihe caucus, and McGinley has been its prophet. They are both jim dandies. Well, the upshot of the whole matter is that the economy and frugality practiced by the last democratie administration is to count for naught. The republican spenders have been in again, and they have scattered the people's money. The adjournment tonight is a somewhat tardy but nevertheless palpable bid for popularity. The reckless majority are at last beginning to understand the temper of the