第117章

Some seventeen years ago a small band of Mormons--headed by Brigham Young--commenced in the present thrifty metropolis of Utah.The population of the territory of Utah is over 100,000--chiefly Mormons--and they are increasing at the rate of from five to ten thousand annually.The converts to Mormonism now are almost exclusively confined to English and Germans--Wales and Cornwall have contributed largely to the population of Utah during the last few years.The population of Great Salt Lake City is 20,000.--The streets are eight rods wide--and are neither flagged nor paved.Astream of pure mountain spring water courses through each street--and is conducted into the Gardens of the Mormons.

The houses are mostly of adobe--or sun-dried brick--and present a neat and comfortable appearance.--They are usually a story and a half high.Now and then you see a fine modern house in Salt Lake City--but no house that is dirty, shabby, and dilapidated--because there are no absolutely poor people in Utah.Every Mormon has a nice garden--and every Mormon has a tidy dooryard.--Neatness is a great characteristic of the Mormons.

The Mormons profess to believe that they are the chosen people of God--they call themselves Latter-day Saints--and they call us people of the outer world Gentiles.They say that Mr.Brigham Young is a prophet--the legitimate successor of Joseph Smith--who founded the Mormon religion.

They also say they are authorized--by special revelation from Heaven--to marry as many wives as they can comfortably support.

This wife-system they call plurality--the world calls it polygamy.That at its best it is an accursed thing--I need not of course inform you--but you will bear in mind that Iam here as a rather cheerful reporter of what I saw in Utah --and I fancy it isn't at all necessary for me to grow virtuously indignant over something we all know is hideously wrong.

You will be surprised to hear--I was amazed to see--that among the Mormon women there are some few persons of education--of positive cultivation.As a class the Mormons are not educated people--but they are by no means the community of ignoramuses so many writers have told us they were.

The valley in which they live is splendidly favored.They raise immense crops.They have mills of all kinds.They have coal--lead--and silver mines.All they eat--all they drink--all they wear they can produce themselves--and still have a great abundance to sell to the gold regions of Idaho on the one hand--and the silver regions of Nevada on the other.

The President of this remarkable community--the head of the Mormon Church--is Brigham Young.--He is called President Young--and Brother Brigham.He is about 54 years old--altho' he doesn't look to be over 45.He has sandy hair and whiskers--is of medium height--and is a little inclined to corpulency.He was born in the State of Vermont.His power is more absolute than that of any living sovereign--yet he uses it with such consummate discretion that his people are almost madly devoted to him--and that they would cheerfully die for him if they thought the sacrifice were demanded--Icannot doubt.

He is a man of enormous wealth.--One-tenth of everything sold in the territory of Utah goes to the Church--and Mr.

Brigham Young is the Church.It is supposed that he speculates with these funds--at all events--he is one of the wealthiest men now living--worth several millions--without doubt.--He is a bold--bad man--but that he is also a man of extraordinary administrative ability no one can doubt who has watched his astounding career for the past ten years.

It is only fair for me to add that he treated me with marked kindness during my sojourn in Utah.

(Picture of) West Side of Main Street, Salt Lake City.(Awagon and team stand outside the "City Bathing House" and a pennant flies over the "temperance hotel.")The West Side of Main Street--Salt Lake City--including a view of the Salt Lake Hotel.It is a temperance hotel.(At the date of our visit, there was only one place in Salt Lake City where strong drink was allowed to be sold.Brigham Young himself owned the property, and vended the liquor by wholesale, not permitting any of it to be drunk on the premises.It was a coarse, inferior kind of whisky, known in Salt Lake as "Valley Tan." Throughout the city there was no drinking-bar nor billiard room, so far as I am aware.

But a drink on the sly could always be had at one of the hard-goods stores, in the back office behind the pile of metal saucepans; or at one of the dry-goods stores, in the little parlor in the rear of the bales of calico.At the present time I believe that there are two or three open bars in Salt Lake, Brigham Young having recognized the right of the "Saints" to "liquor up" occasionally.But whatever other failings they may have, intemperance cannot be laid to their charge.Among the Mormons there are no paupers, no gamblers, and no drunkards.) I prefer temperance hotels--altho' they sell worse liquor than any other kind of hotels.

But the Salt Lake Hotel sells none--nor is there a bar in all Salt Lake City--but I found when I was thirsty--and Igenerally am--that I could get some very good brandy of one of the Elders--on the sly--and I never on any account allow my business to interfere with my drinking.

(Picture of) The Overland Mail Coach.--That is, the den on wheels in which we have been crammed for the past ten days and ten nights.--Those of you who have been in Newgate (The manner in which Artemus uttered this joke was peculiarly characteristic of his style of lecturing.The commencement of the sentence was spoken as if unpremeditated; then when he had got as far as the word "Newgate," he paused, as if wishing to call back that which he had said.The applause was unfailingly uproarious.)-----------------------------------------------------------and stayed there any length of time--as visitors--can realize how I felt.