THE SAD SIDE OF MORMONISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7164, 1 November 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SAD SIDE OF MORMONISM.

Thk Salt Lake correspondent of the New York Sun eays :—"The sad aide of Morinonism is not very often touched upon. Many observers see its ludicrous features, and others the dangerous political tendencies of the hierarchy, but few discover the heartbreaking sorrows so closely veiled in hundreds of homes by fanaticism and terror. When Joseph Cook wast here we received a letter from Mrs. Paddook of this city, telling him the following story :—'A short time ago an educated young newspaper man came to .Utah from England with his young wife. They had fallen under the influence of a Mormon missionary, and were devout believers in the teachings of the saints. For a time they lived here unmolested, but the priesthood at lengtn exerted their_ influence on the husband to force him into polygamy. The wife finding opposition in vain, at last pave her consent. A second wife was brought into the house. In a short time the first wife beoame a mother, but the infant never cried aloud. It came voiceless into the world, bat it wept in silence all the time. Sleeping or waking the tears flowed from its closed eyes, and in three or four weeks it died. The mother said that it died of a broken heart. Every day of its life it shed the tears that the mother had repressed before its birth. The mother herself soon followed the child, and both rest together on the hill. Isaac Langton and his wife have grown greafin faith. For many years they have resisted the appeals of the priests and have lived for each other. They have been poor all their lives, and both have had to struggle hard to keep their home and-rear their children. A happier old couple could not have been found in Utah until recently.Both being near the end of their earthly race, the fond old wife had long ago given up all worry or apprehension concerning her husband's loyalty. In his old age, however, the wiles of the priest caught him. It was represented , to him that the hard lot he hwl experienced through life was due to God's diepleasure because he had not followed the teachings of the prophets, and that if he hoped for better things in the world to come he must quickly take another wife to his home. The old fellow tried to communicate the determination- to his aged partner, but lacked the courage, and finally concluded to surprise her. Be went through the Endowment House with a youthful woman, and presenting himself at his lowly home, informed his first wife what he had done. The old lady was staggered by the blow, but, restraining her feelings, told the newlymarried pair that she would soon be out of their way. Langton and his bride went off on a visit, and on their return on a street car Mrs. Langton No. 1, in abject despair, threw herself under the wheels of the vehicle. The driver chanced to have control of the brake, and stopped tbe car before the old lady was crushed. Her clothing was torn from her, however, and she was seriously injured internally. A decidedly differont result was reached in the case of Israel Pinkham and wife, another old couple, who had removed from Maine many years ago to this territory. Ihey passed through Ssalfc Lake the other day on their way to their old home, and the old lady made no secret of the cause of their return. To a reporter of a Gentile newspaper she said : —" My husband and I have lived together these forty three years, and though we jined the Mormons twenty years ago nothing was ever eaid about polygamy until this spring. Then some sneaking priests came around and got tbe old man worked np with the idea that he must have one or two more wives. ' Not much, Israel Pinkhamj' says I; • we've travelled together this far, and no Mormon will separate us now. We've got two sons and a daughter baok East, who sha'n't have anybody poking fun at them ; and there's the two little boys what we buried back in Maine, who won't have no occasion to pint their fingers at us when we cross over to tbe other shore. This thing has gone just as far as its going to. Israel Pinkham, we are going back to Maine, says I, " and whether we've got one year'or ten years to live, we'll end this here pilgrimage as we begun it.' " " Ain't that what I told you?" said she, addressing the old man, who had been a silent listener. He smiled in a faint way and nodded assent. "We're going back to Maine,' continued the old lady. '" poorsr than when we came out here, but wiser and no wus, so far as I know. There'll be no more Mormons in this family." George Walker had two wives, and married a third, a woman much handsomer than either of the others.' The first one died in a few. weeks, and the second went insane and was sent homo to her parents. Wife No. 3/ who thus became the only wife, led a very contented life for a short time, bat she is now filled with rage aad grief because her husband has married another woman, and is maintaining her in good style in another part of the city. Young Clawson, a son of one of the leading saints, has just married hie third wife in two years. Ho is not twenty two, but promises to rival Brigham Young in the number of his spouses if ho lives as long. He is rich, and his father takes pride in pointing !to him as an example for all the youth in ' Zion to follow. One odd feature of young Glawson's operations in the matrimonial line I is said to be the fact that while the second wife knows of the first, and the third is aware that she has two predecessors, the first does . not know that there is a second or a third, and the second is ignorant that there is one later than.herself. Some time or other, it is confidently I expected, the yount; man will have to make a series of explanations. The strenuous elForta which the leaders in the church are making to stimulate polygamy, and the necessity which exists for keeping plural marriages secret, have induced many of the iaithtul to keep the. fact of their later marriages from even their previoue wives. Knowledge of this state of affairs has driven many Mormon wives who are suspicious of their husbands to the verge of distraction, and not a few of them have adopted.extraordinary measure, to discover whether their apprehensions are well, founded or not. Nothing makes tbe average Mormon woman's lot harder than the suspicion that there are wives of whom she knows nothing. It is bad enough to_ put up with those whom she is well aware divide with her thehonburs of wifehood, but the idea that others of whom she knows nothing may be rolling in luxury eomewhere ia intolerable. Nearly all this wretchedness is concealed. The most extraordinary devices are resorted to to coyer up any scandal among the faithful, .and were it not for the fact that there are many keen-eyed Gentiles here the suppression wonld be complete. A young girl named' Annie Elmore, who came here from England a while ago with a batch of converts, was immediately beset by several old saints with proposals of marriage. She was unusually pretty and intelligent, and the rivalry of the elders was great. To all' she turned a deaf ear, however, and one after another was flatly refused. Then one of the bishops called on her and undertook to - terrify her into marryiDg. He told her that if she remained obdurate he would be compelled to cut her off, not only in this world; but in the next, and explained to her to be cut off was eternal ruin. She defied him to do his worst, and told him that in England the Mormon missionaries bad taught that a woman should marry only the man she loved, and that she was bound to do so. The bishop did not cat her off, bat, learning soon after that she had married a young man who had followed her to this country and joined the church, the excommunication was withdrawn. Just now this, true-hearted girl, who withstood the blandishments and threats of her elders so heroically, that she might remain true to her absent lover, is a raving manic, because he, three months after his marriage with her, brought home anothor wife.