OUR Mormon Missionaries.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1819, 14 December 1875, Page 2

OUR Mormon Missionaries.

BRIGHAM YOUNG WANTS A CARGO OF NEW ZEALAND BEAUTIES.

Messrs. John F. Etch, William McLachlan, F. Hunt, and 0. C. Hunt, who arrived by the steamship Colima yesterday, are Mormon elders, who intend making a tour through New Zealand, with a view to securing converts to the tenets of Joe Smith and Brigham Young. There are a good many people in this colony who fancy more wives than one, and who are not .Latter-Day Saints either ; and, if the elders succeed in weeding them out and conveying them to Salt Lake, we shall be foremost in. advocating a farewell serenade to the noble four as benefactors to New Zealand. There are likewise several strong, angular females of our acquaintance whom we shall be happy to make the Elder Rich a present of, to ornament his own fireside in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, the law of New Zealand, like the law of England, is unfeeling in its designations, and calls gentlemen of the persuasion of Brother Rich and Co. bigamists, for whom is reserved special apartments in our colonial gaols. The San Francisco ' Chronicle informs us something about these missionaries. ' The head of the band is Elder Groo, who goes on to Australia. " Groo has been for many years a member of the City Council; he was Water Master, Street Superintendent, a member of the Board of Regents, a useful man generally, and last, though not least, he is the husband of four wives, "real nice, good women as any man ever had." Brother Groo is largely a father, and counts his offspring by the dozen, and lias altogether quite a little kingdom of his own. fie is still in the summer of life, and may make many conquests among the fair sex yet, away on that far distant island. Elder Croxall is a young man, though for his years he is largely experienced in the ways of the patriarchs. He has already, in the bloom of his youth, enjoyed the harjpincss of three young wives. He is a young man of more than average talent, and has few superiors in the use of the cornet-a-piston. He could bring down thunders of applause in the Salt Lake Theatre; he is, besides, a first-class telegraphist, and counts among his conquests that Brigham is twice his father-in-law. He ought to get along swimmingly in Australia. With the exception of young Missionary Burton, the rest are all well marmarried ; but that, by-the-by, should carry no caution to the maidens of Australia, for the missionaries are at perfect liberty to marry as many more as they please, and marry their mothers, too, if that should be preferred or made a condition."