DECOYED TO SALT LAKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14648, 6 April 1911, Page 5

DECOYED TO SALT LAKE.

HUNDREDS OF SWISS Gil By Telegraph.— Asaocia-Mon.— Copyright. V. -V-' Geneva, April '4. DuRiNO -past five years Mormons have "secure \ the annual emigration of 150 Swiss girls to Utah. ■..,[. ■ , • A strong anti-Mormon agitation has been begun. *■ THE MORMONS IN. ENGLAND. ; , .HOW THE CAMPAIGN IS ■ ~ '.. \ CONDUCTED. Mormon missionaries have been busy again in England, says the Liverpool correspondent of the London Daily Mail, and indignation is rising against the ravages that have been and are being made' in the young womanhood of a northern city. The . city is Liverpool, and the protectors number among them leading citizens, social workers, clergy and the Bishop of Liverpool himself. , They are up in arms at last j and they' demand nothing short of legislation, and stringent legislation, to' help them ' combat the insidious wbrk which ••■ m ' the name of religion "is'•'.being, done in their midst. ' ' ',*,.■■' - <,:'■■■'< .'.' ,'. ' Sermons have ' been preached against Mormonism, pamphlets have been printed, but all ; ;to- no effect. For Liverpool < girls still • continue to .: find ■■■ mysterious aid ; for passages to Utah. Some "mysterious rjena.' advances X, the money. Is this friend a Mormon'.; agency? V The Mormons repudiate the suggestion. ' "We have no hand in it," they say with heat. Yet the girls still continue to go, and Utah continues to receive them into its bosom. Liverpool's trouble is this: The difficulty of proving an offence against the letter of the law; and that difficulty can be better appreciated when it is known- how "openly and how "uprightly" the Mormon missioners do their work. ' The housewife or her daughter hear a tapping at the door. \lt is afternoon ; the good'man is away at work; the street is quiet. She answers it to find:■ two welldressed young f men s standing on ■ the step. They onjy auk that she will accept' a tract. 1 They are; quietly-spoken young men. They raise their*oft, clerical-looking hats. They are conducting a mission in that neighbourhood. r ould " their sister" only read that tract? A tract is read, and the visit proves not . to. be the,; last, -. for there come further visits. Then the invitation to a little devotional meeting at the j meetinghouse in So-and-so-street, and gradually I the " conversion" is effected. " But not one \ word;of^lygahvy.■■•*. .Oh; dear, no !\ ;Itis ! a libel to suggest that Mormonism would permit such a thing as polygamy. - ; It did exist, of course, but that was in days past. Not that it'; was so • infamous after all, for did not Saint So-and-so say——? :•-, .j, • So the insidious work is dope.', ./, ; ; V : Among.the Liverpool girls who have embraced the ; Mormon faith ' and • gone to America are two sisters, aged. 19 and 21. Their parents, right to the moment' of 'sailing, did all they could to dissuade; them, and -there was a ; despairing scene Jon the landing etage v Another girl was a 'typist in biscuit factory, a bonny girl, aid clever in her way. '"She took' up. with the'" Mor-; mons at an open-air meeting in a Liverpool suburb, later left her mother, .brokenhearted, and her brother;' who-waipi|a-lysed, to go to Utah. Another remarkable case was that of a sailor's wife,'who; during her husband's absence • at., sea, ;wae baptised a : Mormon with ■', her children; Finally she left for Utah, leaving her husband to .find her as best he could.: The Mormons "work virtually . unchecked inLiverpool. Ministers and others preach \ against I them, and pamphlets are circulated showing .the. humbug of their case, but the. Mormon missioners ' and officials make headway in spite of it all. - . - U\,