Morning journal and courier., 1883-04-25
THIS LEGIsLATURE.

The end of the present session of the legis- lature is near at hand, and it is generally conceded that nothing of importance has
 been accomplished. No abuses have been re- formed and no great improvements have been made in the jurisprudence of the State. This is not SO because no measure worth consider ation has been offered. The legislature
 might have changed the mode of choosing the judf fes of the inferior courts and thus delivered these courts from as bad a system
 of judicial electioneering as ever existed, but
 the majority preferred to perpetuate it. Why
 we do not know. The neglect to reform this
 abuse was not due to lack of experience. The terms of all the judges of the City courts ex-
 pired this year and the usual Equabble with all it's objectionable meth ods was renewed with full vigor. Having gone through all the acts of this farce the members made up
 their minds that it will bear repetition.
 They might have provided for stenography in the courts, but they have decided to con- tinue the bill until the next session. A con tiuuation to the next session generally amounts to confession that the legislature has not the courage to pass or reject the measure proposed. If this bill is worthy the consideration of the next legislature it is worth consideration now. The representa- tives owe it to the people to pass themselves upon legislation that is demanded and not to shuttle off their responsibilities upon their successors. They certainly do not appear to have lacked for time to give such 8 measure as the stenography bill what little investigation it required. As long as we have annual sessions we shall have a batch of combinations to the next legislature. Since the memory of man been the recipient of number of these lega- cies of shirked responsibility. If the Iegisla- ture met at longer intervals it would be forced to do the needed work
 A commission might have been appointed at the present session to take in hand the probate system of the State, which stands in sore need of improvement. The law makers might have tackled the system of justice tri als, which is far from being the least in the factorizing law, which has been knocking at it's doors for the last five years. We can think of plenty of good things it might have done, but of scarcely any that it has done. The question naturally suggests itself, ''what is all this worth ?" How much is the bill for services rendered? A session of the legisla- ture costs the State not less than a hundred thousand dollars. Does this annual invest ment pay? If so, where are the dividends?
 The State of Illinois is now having little experience similar to ours. This year the legislature of that State has sat long and done nothing. It meets biennially, and the citizens of Illinois are finding out that even biennial sessions do not pay, and they are talking now of triennisl sessions Illinois has about three times as many inhabitants as Connecticut. If an annual three months session is needed in Connecticut 1t would seem as if the legislature of Illinois ought, like the Long Parliament, to sit all the time. but the truth is that the people want less leg islation, or rather less legislature, than they have had The assembly of this State has before it one measure of importance that is not yet rejected or continued to the next ses- sion, that is, the constitutional amendment providing for biennial sessions. Let the legislators pass that and adjourn, and if the amendment is finally adopted they can at least have the consolation of having saved the State as much as they have cost it.