ANN ELIZA YOUNG.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XI, Issue 4081, 11 December 1874, Page 3

ANN ELIZA YOUNG.

[FROM OUR SAIi yRANCTSCO CORRESPONDENT.] Brighaji's nineteenth wife has just completed a course of lectures on Mormonism in this city. 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 4 head, finelycut 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 110 attempt at rhetorical display, nor does she try to arouse the passions of her audience, but in a clear, st.-oug, well modulated voice tells of the wrongs to which she and thousands of her sisters have been subjected in iDtah through the odious system of polygamy. Her picture of Brigham Young (her husband) is a clear, sharp photographphysical and mental. A brief sketch of Ann Eliza, and we follow her story of Mormoudom.

Whilst she was yet in infancy her father and mother became converted to the Mormon faith and joined the Church in Utah. . Ann Eliza was but four years old when this event took place. She was therefore in her earliest years impressed with the Mormon doctrines, —taught to regard them as essential to her present and future welfare. Her parents were, she says, excellent people, sincere in their faith, and blind believers in Brighaui. Her father, in accordance with the wish of the elders of the Church, took unto him a second wife. Ann Eliza depicts iu touching words the life-struggle with her mother after the appearance of the second wife—-a struggle, not with the woman who was called to share her husband's love, but between the woman in her own nature and the faith she had embraced. Ann tells us that her faith conquered, and that these two women lived together in peace, as Tennyson's Dora and Mary proposed to do, for over twelvo years. Whilst yet a mere child, Ann was married to a Mormon, by whom she was treated with the utmost cruelty. So outrageous were the indignities practised upon her, her friends interfered aud obtained a judicial separation. Then Brigliam comes upon the scene, and tells her his eye has been upon her for years, and asks her to become his eighteenth wife. Before she had time to consider a proposal that was in every way objectionable to her, Brigliam selected another eighteenth, and then renewed his offer to make her the nineteenth. Kvery (ine thought in the woman's soul rebelled against the proposal. But Brighaui was a'l- - and backed by the influence of Ann's friends, he compelled the marriage. Ann Eliza gives a humorous description of her new home. A small cottage, furnished at an expenditureof some£2o was, the Prophet thought, good enough for such a fractional wife. About this time Ami lost her father, and the duty of supporting her mother and two children devolved upon her. Brigliam had the very common antipathy to mothers-in-law, and objected to his wife bringing licr to the palatial abode he had set apart for her. But Ann insisted, and at last carried her point. Brigham then set her in charge of a dairy, and permitted his nineteenth wife to milk his cows and every morning trudge around with the milk to the houses of her eighteen competitors for marital bliss. Ann couldn't stand this, and her health gave way. Then Brigham utterly neglected and practically deserted her, and Ann began to have doubts.about the infallibility of this Mormon Pope. Doubts once in possession of her mind, a dread struggle ensued. Brought up in the faith, taught to hate and abhor the Gentile world, the idea of abandoning Mormonism and casting in her lot with the abhorred Gentile, threw her iuto a mental fever, which alarmed her friends, and for a long time she was closely guarded. Her intellect was speedily convinced that Mormonism was a delusion aud a snare, but her sentiment and her fears still held her in bond. But during all this time sho was keenly criticising the system to which she was bound, and was at last able to see clearly the duty of fleeing from the unholy city.

Then came the bitter trial of her life. Her dear mother, whom she loved au<!l revered, looked upon her apostate child as lost for

Her letters to Ann are touching and tentender, full of love, yet shewing that her faith was superior even to her maternal instincts. She implored her child to abandon the friends who had received her after her llight; to return"to the only true faith, aud repent and be saved. But the bitter and relentless efforts which Brigham made to destroy his. wife's character roused the woman in Aim Eliza's mother, and brought forth a warm defence of her child, and 'tis more than probable that the mother will now follow the daughter.

Ann Eliza has united herself to the Methodist Church, uuder the auspices of which she has been lecturing. 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 declares him to be utterly unprincipled, and charges him with the foulest crimes—murder, robbery, blasphemy—anything to enable him to get and keep wealth. His present income exceeds 40,000 dollars per month (nearly £100,000 sterling per annum), and he is yet the most grasping aud sordid man in the whole community. Of late years lie 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. She has 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 arc scattered throughout the territory, and are allowed rations to the extent of about SO dollars per annum. Dress, ornaments, or comforts, they must provide for themselves. Ann declares that thousands oflier fellow slaveswillbreaktheirchains, and llyas soouas Brigham has put on his ascension robes. The old man is ill, and like to die, and 'tis to bo hoped that his death will give the American Government an opportunities breaking up what is little better than a C'3'prian home on a large scale. In the hands of the elders is placed the entire wealth of Mormondorrt. Any Mormon who succeeds in accumulating wealth must either ally himself with the powers that be, and endorse their schemes of robbery, or else lose his money. Amongst the prophets and priests of Mormonisn), religion is a farce, or rather a means whereby these reptiles may fleece their unfortunate victims. Were it not for the gulls who flock in from the Gentile world, Monnonism, 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—Brigham amongst the rest—were indicted for bigamy. They crep out of this by declaring that their so-called wives were ouly concubines ; and now Uncle Sam is "going for them" with a long pole on the charge of adultery. The Gentile influence in and around Utah must, sooner or later, effectually squash this social pest; but as the Mormons number over 100,000, the American Government has a difficult - duty before it. If, however, the recruiting system can be destroyed, by exposing the corruptions of Mormonism, then Ann Eliza will have accomplished a great work. The proceeds of her lectures are devoted to the education and support of her two children. Whatever may bo urged against Brigham in other respects, he is certainly not deficient in good taste—at least judging from the fact of his selecting so interesting a woman as Ann Eliza, even a3 a nineteenth wife.

Brigham's children, now living, number forty-six, but of this number eight stand to the credit o£ 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.

I enclose herewith cabinet pictures of that ancient sinner, Brigham, and of his fascinating young wife, Ann Eliza. If there are any Brighjvnis in your community, their general likeness to the enclosed picture will enable you to detect them, and at once banish them from your virtuous city. I have no doubt your lady subscribers would be gratified by a litho. copy of the photo, of the modern Solomon. Your correspondent's interest centres in Eliza Ann.

But, hasn't Brigham a most saint-like aspect 1