A SALT LAKE SKETCH.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 65, 21 December 1871, Page 3

A SALT LAKE SKETCH.

The following is taken from the “ Social Studies” or the New York World : If the original of the following Salt Lake sketch has not already appeared amongst these weekly social studies, it is because the “English periodical,” to which it is rather vaguely attributed now by the provincial press has elaborated it into something more than its first elements, to make it the livelier as a stoiy of conventional sentiment. By some such process, however, it has attained the merit of being virtually new ; and, as all that appertains to the customs and manners derives a particular interest just now from the apparently imminent downfall of Brigham Young and his institutions, the revelation of the “ English periodical ” may be judiciously presented here, even though it should prove for certain readers a twicetold tale. An Englishman named Sandon, it appears, having reached the city of the Latter-day Saints on his travels across the continent from New York to San Francisco, had his attention attracted during his breakfasting at an hotel in said city by the peculiarly sad look and spiritless manner of a very pretty girl who assisted in the table service. Taking opportunity to ask her as she waited upon him, why she wore such a depressing aspect, lie was startled by the curt answer that she “ wished that she was dead!” Another question, more sympathetically directed,, elicited the information that the girl, like

himself, was of English birth, and had been in Utah but about three months. Satisfied that there was some wrong in the case, Sir Sandon catechised her no further on that occasion, but was chivalrously inspired to invite her fuller confidence at a more favorable opportunity and see what ho could do in her behalf. Not to dwell upon the means he employed to attain the first half of his design, suffice it to say that he gradually gained a knowledge of the girl’s full story. Her name was Esther Lyne, and, from being an assistant in a well-known London haberdashery, she had emigrated to this country upon invitation of a brother, who had been proselyted some time before by a travelling Mormon mission and exported to Salt Lake City. Both her parents, once farming people of Gloucestershire, in good circumstances, were dead ; she longed to lie with her brother again ; and, not knowing definitely of his new religious and social faith, gladly went to rejoin him in his far Western home. Arriving in the City ef the Saints, she found him keeping a prosperous hotel, and horrifying to discover, the husband of four wives! Still worse, he had actually promised her as a wife to a polygamist high in the Mormon Church and State, and had given her to understand that it was a promise which sho must honor. Finding herself deluded to such a fate, and guarded and constrained by a despotism admitting scarcely a hope of escape, it is not surprising that the virtuous and well-educated English girl bitterly regretted that she had left her English home, and wished that death, even, might come to her rescue. Gaining such detailed information of Esther’s mournful face and air, Mr Sandon made the knightly resolution to appoint himself her champion on the spot, and rescue her from her unnatural peril at all hazards. Knowing that it would be useless to attempt anything against Mormon power and purpose single-handed, he sought an interview with the United States Judge at at the head of the Territorial judiciary, and, having stated the case, invoked tho intervention of national law. The latter, lie was told, could do nothing in such matter. According to his own statement, the girl, not yet at her majority, was under the perfectly legitimate guardianship of her brother, and could not bo helped by the State, save upon an attested personal appeal, for sufficient cause. In his despair, the Englishman next appealed to the little garrison at Camp Douglas for a military arrest of something or somebody; but, of course, General De Trobriand and his officers could do no more than sympathize morally and socially with the knighterrant. Such failure would have been the more disheartening but for the one resource still left to British chivalry. Tho laws and armies of the great republic might not interfere at that time between a powerful elder of the Salt Lake Tabernacle and his destined seventh wife ; but they could and would prevent an unlawful restraint upon the liberty of the wife of a foreign visitor ! There were strange confidential interviews ensuing with the United States Judge and his wife, the officers of Camp Douglas, and the most respectable “ Gentile ” ladies and gentlemen of the town; one day Esther Lyne was away from the hotel for so unusually long a time that her brother sternly rebuked her therefore upon her return ; and, on the, following morning, when Mr Sandon stood hatted, cloaked, and gloved for the “ stage ” which was to carry him further on his journey, Esther, as well equipped for travel, appeared quietly at his side. The Judge had married them, in the presence of witnesses ; two or three officers from the camp were at hand to “ see them oil: ;” and mine host of the caravansary, with his Mormon friends, could only scowl at their own signal outwitting, and permit rescuer and rescued, loyal knight and lady fair, to go in peace.