ONE OF YOUNG'S WIVES ON MORMANISM.

Evening Star, Issue 3690, 19 December 1874, Page 2 (Supplement)

ONE OF YOUNG'S WIVES ON MORMANISM.

{From the N Z. Heralds correspondent.)

Brigham’s nineteenth wife has just completed a course of lectures on Mormonism in California. Ann has been a success, and her clear, Cameo-cut story has opened the hearts and eyes of thoughtful Californians. She is a handsome brunette—tall, elegant, and graceful. Has an intellectual head, finely cut features, an air of decision that attracts and commands respect. Her face bears the marks of keen mental suffering, and indicates the power not only to suffer but to do. There is nothing of the advanced woman’s rights air about her. 'Tis clear that the telling of her painful story is still a pain to her. She makes no attempt at rhetorical display, nor does she try to rouse the passions of her audience, but in a clear, strong, well modulated voice tells of the wrongs to which she and thousands of her sisters have been subjected to in Utah through the odious system of polygamy. She sums up Brigham’s character as that of a keen, hard, avaricious adventurer, who has full faith in himself, but not a particle in the religion he teaches. She gives him credit for great ability, but deckx-es him to be utterly unprincipled, and charges him with the foulest ciimes—murder, robbery, blasphemy —anything to enable him to got and keep wealth. His present income exceeds 40,000 dollars per month (nearly £IOO,OOO sterling per annum), and he is yet the most grasping and sordid man in the whole community. Of late years he has abandoned all his wives save one, Aurelia, who rules him with a rod of iron. She is queen of Utah, has a splendid house, furnished at an expense of 100,000 dollars, and Brigham, in his 78th year, is her most

obedient slave. Sbe lias no beauty, is but poorly educated, has nothing attractive about her, but she is gifted with a terrible temper, to which Brigham yields without even the show of opposition. His other wives and their children are scattered throughout the territory, and are allowed rations to the extent of about 80 dollars per annum. Dress, ornaments, or comforts, they umst provide for themselves. Ann declares that thousands of her fellow slaves will break their chains, and fly as soon as Brigham has put on his ascension robes. The old man is ill, and like to die, and ’tis to be hoped that his death will give the American Government an opportunity of breaking up what is little better than a Cyprian home on a large scale. Were it not for the gulls who flock in trom the Gentile world, Mormonism, as a religious system, could not live; but England and Wales add yearly to the list of fools who sell their souls and bodies to this lust creed. But Uncle Sam is after them. Last month a number of the leading elders—Brio-ham amongst the rest—were indicted for bigamy. They crop out of this by declaring that their so-called wives were only concubines; and now Uncle Sam is “going for them ” with a long pole, on the charge of adultery. Brigham’s children, now living, number forty-six, but of this number eight stand to the credit of Joe Smith, Brigham having taken four of Joe’s wives into stock when that luminary departed for regions unknown. Though Brigham raised the young stock, he will have to account for them to Joe when they strike a balance in limbo.