The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-03-12
BALTIMORE.
MONDAY, MARCH Y, 1860.

more important measures which have been under
discussion, should be able with perfect camness
and dispassionaeneSs to survey and report the re-
suits of the session. We have been no idle specta
tors of what has been going on this winter at An
napolis. Our position for or against every impor-
taut Bill which has been under consideration is
on record. We have neither kept silence with re-
spect to any measure, the passage of which, we
conceived, might affect either favoraby or iniuri-
ously the interests of this city or State nor have
we suffered our interest in any particular measure
to blind our eyes to everything else. Wehave en-
deavored TO be independent in all things-neutral
in nothing-and now that the session is closed, we
do not choose to disguise the satishcton-nay
the exutation-with which we regard results that
accord so precisely with the views and incinations
we have all along expressed and entertained.
What are those results?
First, in the scale of importance, and among the
earliest in point of chronological order we would
name the passage of the Reform Bills-the Police
Bill-the Election Law-and now, since Friday
night, the Jury Law. We have said so much
and repeated it often, in favor of these measures
that we have nothing to add in respect to them
now. The stern and sorrowful experience which
demonstrated the necessity of such legislation
which prepared this community to ask for it with
such singular unanimity-and which schooled
and sharpened the faculties of the able and patri-
otto men who drafted the Bills, is too fresh in the
minds of our readers, to require recapitulation now
The Bills were, as is well known, drawn, not in
Annapolis, but here. Had the Legislature been en-
dowed with a thousand-fold more capacity and
intelligence than it really possessed, it would
have been incompetent to the task Nothing but
personal experience of the evils to be cured,
could have supplied the wisdom to devise rem
edy Yet the praise to be awarded to the Legis-
lature is none the less-that it should have
adopted so readily the views and suggestions of
leading Reiormers here-eten to the extent of ap-
pointing Police Commissioners the persons
whom they nominated. The honest determine
ton of the Legislature to grant to the citizens
OF Baltimore all the redress they needed, could
have no better Illustration than is to be found in
its willingness to let our people be themselves the
judges of the mode and manner of that redress
The only manner asked for by the Reformers
which mis- carried, was the Registry Law, and
that failed rather through want of time to press
it, than from any indisposition on the part of the
majority to pass it. &c. too the constitutionality
OF the Police Law remains to be decided by the
Courts, before whom the question at this time is
pending, but we need hardly say that we have
no misgivings as to the result. Had we ever en-
tertained the shadow of doubt upon the subject
that doubt would have been dissipated by the
utterly weak and inconclusive arguments made
by the learned counsel for the city, and which
admit of no other criticism than that if they
comprised all that was to be said against the Bill,
it was not worth the saying
Another important act Of the session, which,
like the passage of the Reform Bills, consisted
rather in the adoption of the fruits of other men
labors than in the performance of any great
amount OF work on the part of the Legisla-
ture ITSELF was the passage of the Code. The necessi-
ty careful and thorough revision of the Statute
Law of Maryland had long been acknowledged
Such was the mass of confused, inconsistent and
oftentimes contradictory legislation, that it was
almost impossible to tell what was the existing law
upon any important point, without long and labo-
nous research. The important duty of bringing
order out of this legal Chaos of doubt and uncer-
tainty, had been committed by previous General
Assembly, we believe, to competent hands. Their
work had been revised by a Committee of the last
Legislature, composed exclusively of members of
the legal profession. 1t only remained for the pre-
sent Legislature to put the finishing stroke to the
whole, by giving to the Code the efficacy of law.
This it has DONE and in view of the liberal compen.
sation awarded both to the Codifers and Revisers
we must trust that it has been well earned That
in a work of so much magnitude errors and mis-
takes will be found, we do not doubt These il
will he for future legislation to correct as time
and experience shall bring them to light
With respect to the Address for the removal O
Judge STUMP, which, so far as this community i:
concerned, and next to the Reform Bills already
mentioned, we consider to have been the most i'm
portant measure of the session, we have already
spoken so freely and so recently, that we do no
feel called upon to say more. We congratulate
the Legislature upon the frmness with which i
discharged painful duty, and we respect the
sentiment of honest commiseration which ever
the Judges sternest accuser is at liberty
to feel for him whom he has helped to cast down
Had Judge STUMP remained upon the Bench, w,
should have regarded as of even greater conse
quence than we at present attach to it, the pas
sage. on Friday of stringent law against Lot
teries. The measure is a valuable one, as placing
IL out OF the power of the subtest legal ingenuity
to devise means for the restoration of an infamous
traffic which the laws of the State and the sent
ments of all honest men equally condemn
The vote by which, on the last day of the SEES
sion, the election pretended to have been held r
the city of Baltimore on the I'd of November, 1880
was declared null and void, may not, at frs
SIGHT, have conceded to it by everybody the sig
nlhcance to which it is really entitled Apar
from the fact that it settles great principle
and that it gives to Mr.. JARRETT the Comm
trollership, and Gusts Mr. GATHER from the Clerk.
snip oil the Circuit Court it should be considered
mat the expulsion of the sitting members from
Baltimore from their seats, on the last day of the
session, was, If possible, more ignominious than i
1t had taken place at an earlier period They
were kept in during the session, simply to be used
ana then when their votes were no longe
wanted, they were unceremoniously turned
out OF doors. We do not of course iustif,
the motives which so long DELAYED action in thei
case; we simply mention the fact, and if it is no
credtabe to the ma jority of the House. it is eve,
less complimentary to the elected members Il
honorable contrast to the behavior and fate of his col
leagues, has been the conduct of Mr.. WIsoNG, who
during the entire session, never appeared or elaine
the seat, to which he knew, as well as they, tba
neither he nor they had been elected He has hi
reward, not only in his escape from the mortiica
ton If an expulsion from the House. but in tb
respect with which the whole community ba
regarded his motives and action
From this hasty review of what the Legislator
has done, we pass to a consideration, equally cur
sorry of what it has left undone-and here w
recognize rs first in Importance, and hardly in
ferior subject of congratulation to the success
of some of the measures we have named-the failur
of the BROCK Bill and of the Bill for an increase
the Stakeholder representation in the BALTIMoR
and ONO Railroad to command a constitutions
majority of the House To both of these measure
we have offered Il strenuous and consistent opposi
ton at every stage of their progress Before tn
interest of Messrs. BROCK & Co. in the CITY Pas
senger Railway project was disclosed, and whe
come of those who have since been loudest in thei
opposition to the Brock Bill were both silent an
lukewarm upon the subject, we opposed the pas
sage by the Councils of the ordinance granting
the use OF the streets to TRAVERs & Co. In on
opposition 10 the BALTIMORE and ONO Railroa
Bill among the press of the city. we have stoo