ENGLAND TO NEW ZEALAND THROUGH AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 7628, 2 June 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

ENGLAND TO NEW ZEALAND THROUGH AMERICA.

Part 10. ult lake city—the .mormons —tlik (ireat SALT LAKE—Of! DEN SOU K FACTS A ROUT UTAH. ~. v A , .. Through the Price River Canon the line runs through the very heart of the Wahsatch Range, until at Soldier Summit it descends the western slope through Spanish Fork Canon, emerging at last into the Utah Valley. Soon a halt of a few minutes is made at Provo, a rising city of some 6,000 inhabitants, the situation and surroundings of which are of remarkable beauty. On the east and north the Wahsatch Mountains rear their lofy peaks ; whilst to the west ami south stretch fields of grain and pasture meadows sloping gradually towards the lovely Utah Lake. The city is profusely planted with trees, and fresh cool water from the River Timpanogos runs through most of the streets. Inexhaustible supplies of water are further obtained from artesian wells. Provo is to be noted as the educational centre of the Territory, and runs two newspapers, one having the curiously suggestive name of the ' Territorial Inquirer.' We are now in Mormon-land, and several young people are pointed to me at the railway depot as belonging to the families of saints. The girls struck me as being remarkably good-looking, modest_ in demeanour, and pleasing in manner. Leaving the garden city, as it is appropriately called, a two-hours' run through a highly cultivated country, where the eye on both sides takes in a view of fields and orchards and meadows green with most luxuriant growth, and marked off by rows of stately trees or patches of young woodland, brings us to Salt Lake City. It is a popular delusion among people who oughttoknow betterthat the Great Salt Lake was discovered by the Mormons, but both Utah and its lake were well known to geographers when Brigham Young led his proselytes, expelled from Illinois and Missouri, persecuted even to the death in lowa, to the Far West over the Rocky Ranges, and took possession of the Great Salt Lake valley " for an everlasting abode." Two years later, in 1849, the Utah territory was recognised by the United States, and Urigham Young appointed the first Governor. Up to the present time it has not been received into the Union as a State, but strenuous endeavors are just now being made to that effect. The existence of the Lake was known to the early Spanish explorers in the south, and the French in the north-west a century ago had some knowledge of its magnitude and of the " noxious and extremely salt" character of the water. The trappers of the fur companies, who frequently wintered in these beautiful valleys of the Northern Wahsatch, must have had its glittering expanse under their eyes, but before 1825 no white man is known to have reached its shores. The first to do so was Captain Bonneville, and the Lake was named after him, and is still " Lake Bonneville " on the United States survey maps. Salt Lake City is not on the lake, but quite twenty_ miles distant as the crow flies, and is situated at the very base of the Wahsatch Range. It is only from the upper terraces, or " the bench," a3 this higher ground at the back is called, that the lake is even visible, and then only as a line of color in the distance against the cloudy outline of the further hills. I have to confess that neither curiosity nor taste induced me to make any stay at the Mormon headquarters. I simply passed through, and what I did see was from the railway depot and the line. The temple, nowlbelieveapproachingcompletion, and the tabernacle are conspicuous objects. The temple is a huge erection, apparently of granite, in the palatial Gothic style. It is not intended, I wa3 told, as a place of worship, but as a sort of Valhalla, where various ceremonies are to be performed, such a3 consecration and marriage. It is an article of the Mormon jreed that Christ will .appear bodily to the faithful in the temple At soon as it is completed. This may perhaps be the reason why the present authorities are in no hurry to put the finishing touches, since the non-fulfilment of the promise of the prophet might be expected to shake an already waning faith. The tabernacle is very well known from photographs and description. I was able just to aee the top of the huge elliptical dome, like nothing so much as a big dish-cover without a handle. The city, stretching back from the railway line (which skirts the southern boundary) to the very base of the lofty and broken mountain range, has a distinct beauty of it* own, owing to the dense foliage with which the buildings generally appear to be environed. When the city was laid out it was made the duty of every citizen to plant seeds of shade trees from the Eastern States or set out saplings brought from the hills on both sides of every thoroughfare, while broad, deep gutters were constructed along each curbing. Now, those seedlings and saplings of acacia, poplar, Cottonwood, mulberry, box elder, honey locust, have grown into wide-spreading and lofty trees, which literally canopy the avenues, and down the gutters flow sparkling streams of water. The houses which I noted stood in their own snug plots of ground ensconced in trees and shrub 3 and climbing plants, with close-mown lawnsin front. Thesuburbsthroughwhich,in approaching and leaving the depot, we passed, grade off into farms quite imperceptibly, the streets continuing right off into country roads, frequently between dense jungles of huge sunflowers on lofty stems. Although, as I have said, I did not make any stay, or even go into the city, I obtained a good deal of information from fellow travellers, one of whom, I have reason to think, was a Mormon bishop, as to the present state of society, of which there may be said to be four separate sections. First, the adherents of the Mormon Church —the Saints ; second, those who never have been nor are ever likely to be Mormons—the Gentiles—among whom are included most of the leading business men ; third, the seceders from the Mormon Church ; and fourth, the renegades and irresponsible of all who go by the very apt Californian designation of "hoodlums." The city government is peculiar and very complete in its way. Th« streets, 130 ft wide, run to the points of the compass, and crom* one another at right angles. A square of nino blocks, containing ten acres, constitutes a ward, of which there are twenty-four, each presided over by a bishop, who in the early days was more a temporal than a spiritual head, exercising magisterial functions when there was practically no appeal from ecclesiastical to civil judgment. This ward classification, it must be understood, enters largely into the social constitution of the city, and each of tlie wards is decidedly clannish. Each ward has aw assemblyroom, in which, during the winter months, dancing and other entertainments take place frequently. Gentiles are occasionally invited. Among the peculiar institutions of the city are the Anti-Polygamy Society, which publishes a monthly journal, the 'Standard '• the M'Kenzie Reform Club, a Gentile association established for the suppression of iutemperance ; and the Ladies' Mutual Improvement Club. There are also two ladies' literary societies. The community generally is very musical. Nearly everybody, it is said, plays some instrument or other, from the big organ in tlue tabernacle down to the humble Jew's harp. Theatrical entertainments—there is a very fine theatre —are well patronised now _ that through railway communication brings the city within the range of professional companies. As to sacred musi/j, it is said, instrumentally, to be very fine j but I cannot say much for the devotional'character at the words of the hymns which form so p*ou;in<snt a part in the so-e»l!fid worship in the tibornacle. Here are a few lines taken from the Monjion hymn book just where I happened to opes it when handed to me to look at -: GOOD LITTLE LUC?. Good little Lucy—she wis her father's caro ; She never grieved her mother's heart By banging of hex hair •! Persons n^"» ed to tho orAia *ry limited Mtent permissible by law and the rufcs .of civilised society flrt> naturally cunou to know how the Mormons manage <jomeafecallv It must be .understood that sot more than 10 pe* «»t. of the adult male Mormon populatfoa Are polycaraistß, it being, in the first place, indisSensable to possess an independence p? property in some form ; whdrt all nerßonV tastes do not he m the direction J foo much multiplied Übs! , What 1 ad now about to state I gathered from a very Sever aketch of Utah and itspeople, writ^n

by it well-known American author, and recently published in a magazine. In the city it is seldom that the different wives share the same quarters. The general method is to have a large house, the main part of which is occupied by the first wife, on the principle of " first come first served," and wings or additions by the successive candidates for marital honors. In many cases, however, the husband sets up his wives in separate homes, either within the same grounds or in different parts of the city, each wife having, as a universal rule, her own kitchengarden, and frequently some farming ground in the suburbs, which she cultivates with the aid of her children. These women mostly rear bets, and realise a large amount of honey annually. All the produce raised is their own specific property. Speaking of a wealthy dignitary of the church, who has seven wives, the author mentioned above gives a very realistic description:—" The way in which this old gentleman has always arranged his domestic life is reported to be thus: He had certain rooms in his house >vhero he kept his bed, his wardrobe, his books, and saw any visitors who called on him. Here he was a bachelor ; and here he stayed every other day and night. On alternate days and nights he was the guest of one or other of his wives in regular rotation, devoting the one day (in this case fortnightly), which was hers, diligently to her society. Of course this routine was not invariable ; but for the most part it was regularly followed." In respect to the liquor traffic, now an important question of the day, Utah has neither adopted nor seems likely to adopt Prohibition ; indeed, in this matter the community have notably fallen away from grace. Brigham Young rigidly excluded alcoholic liquors, and drinking bars were rare, even a dozen years ago. Now, however, there are numerous breweries of lager beer, and in the city drinking saloons of the regular American type are common, some being kept by Mormons. The lager beer I oan recommend as being exceedingly good; but Utah should be a paradise for total abstainers, in that it contains springs of sparkling water impregnated with some subtle gas which it retains when bottled off, and is equal to the very finest Apollinaris. I had the opportunity of seeing the Mormons in great force. I passed through on the 25th July, " Pioneer day, ' when the first entrance into the valley is celebrated. The Mormon population on this day resort almost en mawe to the shores of the great Salt Lake, where there are bathing pavilions, and long booths erected as shelter from the sun, and a great picnic, or something very like it, with all sorts of out-door amusements, goes on all day and far into the evening. When our train left the depot at about 5 p.m., although ostensibly the western express for Ogden, the railway authorities hitched on about a dozen long open cars crowded with men, women, and children, who I found, on inquiry, were the latest contingent for the Lake Park festivities, and that we were to diverge from the main lino to the lake shore to land them at the Lake Park, which, by the way, resembles a park in no essential particulars, being sandy, scrubby, and with only miserable looking skeletons of shrubs. It is, in fact, impossible to make trees grow on the borders of the lake, the water and soil being bitterly salt, and no means of irrigation by fresh water available. It was a lovely summer evening when we steamed out of the depot at Salt Lake City, and in less than an hour were skirting, at some little distance, the shores of the lake—the great expanse of water strangely beautiful with varying hues. It is, in fact, a large inland sea, and the lofty ranges of mountains on the opposite side seem to be indefinitely distant, rising apparently from the very margin to their pinnacled creets, where the snow lies here and there in shaded patches. Although the delay of an hour or two was involved,! considered myself exceptionally fortunate in getting so close a view of the lake. Running off on a branch line, we came close to the water's edge, and disconnected the excursion cars just opposite the Lake Park Hotel and Bathing Pavilion. There were great crowds of people, with children innumerable, evidently in the very height of enjoyment, but nothing distinctive of Mormon life was observable. The " fun of the fair " reminded me very much of Coney Island, without, of course, the aristocratic leaven. Dancing pavilions were in full swing, and every kind of diversion provided for the young people. The lake looked especially inviting, but bathers have, I was told, to be especially careful. The great density of the water sustains you that you float easily, but it is very hard work indeed to swim ahead; the proportion of saline matter is six times that of the ocean and nearly that of the Dead Sea—in which, by the way, I once took a dip, but should never care to do so again. The danger, however, both in that sea and the Salt Lake, lies in taking any water into the mouth; fatal consequences have ensued when it has been swallowed, since it not only produces a choking effect, but is described as burning the tissues of the throat and lungs. Some lives, I was informed, are thus lost every summer, and many persons suffer much from just such an accidental gulp as frequently ia taken by a swimmer. The only safe plan is to keep your mouth Bhut and your head well out of water. After dropping the excursionists, we regained the main line, and in about an hour—i.e., about 7 p.m.—reached Ogden, where is the junction of the Union and Central Pacific Railways and the western terminus of the Denver and Rio Grande lines. Ogden, which of course calls itself a city, has a population of over G,OOO, and is picturesquely situated in a sort of nook at the base of the mountain range, and within two or three miles of the Salt Lake. I had, however, little or no time to look round, having to secure my berth in a Pullman on the Central Pacific, and transfer myself and light baggage to that line—all within the period of about twenty minutes. As a rule I abjure statistics in these notes, but there are a few facts about Utah which may not be without interest. The number of farms is 9,452; land under cultivation, 400,000 acres ; value of farm produce in 1886, estimated at 10,000,000dol; income from stockraising, 2,000,000d01. Gold, copper, and silver ore found in the Wahsatch Mountains, but the silver mines alone are at all in a developed state. There is abundance of coal, the principal sources of supply being in the valley of the Weber River. Salt-making is a thriving industry ; several thousands of tons are exported annually, and great quantities used at the silver mines in chlorodising ores. An inexhaustible supply is furnished by the simple process of damming small bays on the lake and letting the water evaporate. The population last year was estimated by the registrar of the territory at 143,693, of whom 43,994 are recorded as "foreign," which means, I presume, that they are not Mormons. These must be chiefly adult males, the majority probably miners, since the voting population of the territory is given as 32,773 ; native (white), 13,795; foreign (white), 18,283; colored (Indians), 695. The school population is 43,303 ; school age, six to eighteen.