Work For The Legislature

Severa! of pur Democratie exchanges are enjoining on the Legislature to be in session not exceeding thirty days, because the State is poor, because there willbe but little business, because the people expect a short session, and nothing else will satisfy them. Good advice and good reasons, but we fear they will amount to little practical ly. The Marshall Expounder takes ground against all appraisal and stay laws, - but thinks an immediate repeal would be injudicious. In reference to the stay laws, it has been our opinión for many years that the Iength of time granted to the debtor to pay judgments that are stayed, operates unfavorably on the interests both of debtor and creditor. The former is encouragedby the great lenity of the law to contract debts without being compelled to it by necessity; and in very many cases they are entered into with the previous intention of not paying them till the last legal process shall have been exhausted. On account of the great Iength of time required to collect a small debt, the creditor runs much greater risks of losing it, and therefore requires a larger profit on his capital. The time now allowed for collection is too long, but the law should not be altered without excepting all contracts previously made. A large proportion of the pecuniary transactions of the State have been arranged upon theposition that the present collection laws would not be materially altered; & a great and sudden chango in them,extending back to contracts long since made, would be disastrous to all parties. The same paper recommends that the action of the last Legislature on the Adultery laws, &c. should be retraced, not because of any serious evils to the moráis of community from the present laws, but because the people are dissatisfied.{L7 In a recent letter from Ashland, Mr. Clay writes concerning his connexion with Free Masonry: "I became a Masón in early life, from youthful curiosity and a social disposition; but I never had any taste for, or was much skilled in the mysteries of the order. - All the professed objects of the Institution, as developed to me, (and I knew no other,) were charitable and benevolent. Official evidence of my retirement from the lodge upwards of nineteen years ago, has been published; and I have not since been a member of any Lodge, nor held any office, place, or appointment of any kind in the institution."