“Governor, I have been implored by a poor, miserable wretch in the penitentiary to bring you this rude fiddle. It was made by his own hands with a penknife during the hours allotted to him for rest. It is entirely without value, as you can see, but it is his petition to you for mercy. He begged me to say that he has neither influential friends nor attorneys to plead for him; and all that he asks is that, when the governor shall sit at his own happy fireside on Christmas eve with his own happy children around him, he will play one tune to them on this rough fiddle and think of a cabin far away in the mountains whose hearthstone is cold and desolate and surrounded by a family of poor little helpless ragged children, crying for bread and waiting and listening for the footsteps of their father.” Who would not have been touched by such an appeal? The record was examined. Christmas eve came. The governor sat that night at his own happy fireside, with his own happy children around him and he played one tune to them on that rough fiddle. The fireside of the cabin in the mountains was bright and warm. A pardoned prisoner sat with his baby on his knee, surrounded by his happy children and in the presence of his rejoicing wife. And, although there was naught but rags and squalid poverty around him his heart sang, “Be it ever so humble, There’s no place like home.” When I used to play the role of governor of the old Volunteer State, I often felt the stings of criticism for the liberal use of the pardoning power. But I saw old mothers with their white locks and wrinkled brows swoon at the governor’s feet every day. I saw old fathers with broken hearts and tear-stained faces and heard them plead by the hour for their wayward boys. I saw a wife and seven children clad in tatters and rags and barefooted in midwinter fall down upon their knees around him who held the pardoning power. I saw a little girl climb upon the governor’s knee and put her little arms around his neck and I heard her ask him if he had little girls; and then I saw her sob upon his bosom as though her little heart would break and heard her plead for mercy for her poor, miserable, wretched convict father. I saw want and woe and agony and anguish unutterable pass before the gubernatorial door. And I said: “Let this heartless world condemn! let the critics frown and rail, but he who hath power and doth not temper justice with mercy will cry in vain himself for mercy on that great day when God shall judge the merciful and the unmerciful!” SOUTHERN PLATFORM DEPARTMENT CONDUCTED IN THE INTEREST of THE LYCEUMS of THE SOUTH [Illustration] [Illustration: Southern Platform]