Bowen's Pardon

Despite the tact that the prosecuting officer and eleven of the twelve jurymen who convicted ex-Conyressman Bowen of bigamy united in the potition lor his pardoning, we regret the President's compliance with thoir request. No one who has read the testimony in his case can doubt the existence of some foul play in his pretended divorce from one of his former wives, of which he must at least have been cognizant and there is little or no probability that if he had been a man of no prominence, of limitcd means, and without influontial friends, he could have obtained a pardon. The fact that the hand of the law is, as a rule, laid heavily upon the obscure, and yet so often touches lightly upon the guilty in " high life," is one of the scandals of this age. It weakcns the popular faith in justice, destroys tliat respect for law that is so essential, and prodúceos results that are nothing less than deplorable. The pardoning power is one of the most important prerogatives that is attached in the American system to the executive department. lts use, however, should be sparing and only for the most cogent reasons, and its misusö cannot be too deeply regretted. That it Rhould be exercised to shelter a bigamist, convicted upon such testimony ag that given in the Bowen trial, and at a time when the reasons are so numerous that make it desirable that offences against the ganctity of the marriage tie should be severely punished, issomething that it will be diffcult to justify, and that the President's truest friend will fail to