The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

890 Cott anb tagion. The Royal Family have passed the week in the full enjoyment of the Highlands. Daily rides and drives for her Majesty and the Prin cesses, and deer-stalking for the Prince Consort, have absorbed the week. Count Lavradio, Portu guese Minister, has arrived on a visit to her Majesty. The Prince of Wales, it is stated, will shortly make a tour through Switzerland, remaining some time at Geneva, and after visiting all the most interesting portions of the Alpine districts, as well as the princi pal lakes, will return to England. The Duke and Duchess of Richmond are still entertaining a select circle at their princely residence at Gordon Castle. The Earl and Countess of March have returned from Cawdor Castle, where they had been on a visit to Viscount and Viscountess Emyln. Emily, Duchess of Beaufort, and the Ladies Somerset., and the Duke and Duchess of Manchester are expected at the castle in a few days. His Excellency Baron Bentinck has left town for Scotland on a tour of visits. The Duke of Devonshire on leaving Bolton Abbey, last week, went to Hardwickelall, his princely man sion near Chesterfield. The Duke of Rutland has been entertaining a select party at Longshawe Lodge, Derbyshire. Lord and Lady Forester and Lord George and Lady AdPliza Manners have been staying with the noble duke. the Marquis of Lansdowne gave a grand fete at ]3owood, a few days since, to his tenantry and the inhabitants of Caine. More than 4,000 persons par ticipated in the hospitality liberally provided by the noble marquis. Rittropolitan. THE MORMONS IN LONDON. Mosmosisx is, unhappily, one of the great facts of the day. A meeting of this sect was held on Mon day, at the " Teetotal-hall, Broadway, Westminster," and it professed to be a " Mormon CONFERENCE.', An account of the proceedings is given in the Globe of Tuesday, but we wish that the writer had con fined himself exclusively to the tone of a reporter, as an air of mockery runs through the record, and some might suspect that the narrative was drawn up in a vein of waggery. We do not surmise that such was the case. On the contrary, we believe that the narrative is substantially correct. The Globe very properly " omits to record some of the more improper sayings and doings of the evening :" The proceedings were certainly of such a character as were never witnessed in a " Conference" before. The attendance was not very numerous, but it comprised all the leading members of the Conference. At the outset the assemblage engaged in singing, in a load strain, one of their favourite hymns, led on by Elder Bernard, to the tune of " The Low•backed Car." The purport of this song was the long•looked for day when they would all get to Zion (Utah). It seemed to be rather a painful effort to Brother Bernard, and it was decidedly so to those of the audience who happened not to be Mormons. Brother SILVER, one of the elders, neat obliged the com pany with " a little harmony." It was something about I never knew what joy was Till I became a Mormon, &c. Several songs and recitations were given. One of the elders sang a song styled " Sectarian Non sense," one verse of winch ridiculed the absurdity of a man when he is ill going to a doctor u the Gentiles I i.e., all who are not Mormons) do, instead of going to an elder of the church to be headed. One of the Yankee elders, fresh from the Salt Lake Valley, said he " felt lust rate." He could fetch in firing, if they wanted it; and be calculated he was always "to hand" when anybody was wanted to move the Stills, to hunt up the lost sheep, or to drive the oxen. When any. thing of this kind was to be done, he wes always to hand, to do the best be could ; but he wasn't much of a hand at discoursing. He drew a pitiable picture of the heathenism of this country, and gave a glowing description of the en lightenment and happiness of the saints in Utah. . . A Mr. HARRISON. who was one of the very few English men amongst these Mormon prophets, next addressed the meeting. He said that Mormonism and its professors were not to be judged by existing standards ; for they were far above and beyond them. It had been Paid that Mormonism was unnecessary because there was nothing new in it that was true, and nothing true in it that was new. This was not the case. It supplemented the revels tions of the Bible and completed them. They had been accused of saying nothing yesterday of polygamy. The polygamy they advocated was not the lustful polygamy of the Orientals. The polygamy of the Mormons was a system which controlled the lusts and passions of mankind, and reduced the marital duties to some kind of system. Mormonism did nut allow men and women to rush into matrimony as dictated by their passions, and without any guiding principle. Mormonism came to them with principles adapted to every condition of a man's life; it entered into the privacy of the chamber, and controlled every action. It taught men to act as kiod would hare them THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 12, 1857. act. This was the difference between the Mormonite polvgamy and the Oriental system. The congregation then indulged in some doggrel verses, which they sung to the popular air of " Minnie," of the words of which song their " psalm" was a wretched parody. Elder GEORGE READ then recited a piece about "The Bishops Banquet," describing the good living of the right rev. prelates—a recitation which was singularly malapropos and in very bad taste, seeing that it was immediately fol• lowed by the Mormonite "refreshments," apples and pears on damp and dirty " waiters," with little cakes and biscuits, which were stale and unsavoury. These were washed down by copious draughts of pump water from large jugs. Another ELDER then indulged in a " little harmony" about " Sleepy Parsons," the chorus to which was— Heigho! you sleepy parsons! Ila! ha! ha! ha! what a lark! After all your college learning You will tiud you're in the dark. The very reverend elder gave this song with much vigour to the air of a weU•known nigger melody, " Oh Susannah, don't yon cry for me," and he added to the effect by vigo rous slaps of his hands upon his stalwart thighs, after the most approved fashion of the Ethiopian Serenaders. The effort was very much relished by the audience, who loudly applauded. Sister PEARCE and several other sisters subsequently sang. An ELDER, with a strong Yankee brogue, advised ;be sisters to sell off all their ornaments, which took them ad) long every day to dust, and to put the money into the emi gration fund, to enable them to " gather out of Babylon"— i. to leave this country for Utah. The Apostle ORSON PRATT then gave the " Sisters " some advice on the subject of marriage. He said that marriage, if celebrated by the Mormon Church, which alone had full authority, extended not only till death, but throughout eternity. He urged them not to marry men not Mormons, or else when they awoke in the Day of Judgment they would find themselves without husbands, and be obliged to remain single throughout eternity. This he described to be a horrible eventuality, and propounded the doctrine that a propagation of spirits would go on in a future world just as the propagation of our species goes on in this. EzEA BENSON, another Apostle from the Salt Lake Valley, addressed the audience in his shirt sleeves. His speech was full of Yankee humour, rather coarse, but it told well with the saints. He , aid he felt " rust rate." He referred to the subject of marriage, and to his own wives and children whom he had left in Utah, and said he be lieved that all his wives would not apostatise, and that therefore he would not be likely to undergo the misery of remaining single in heaven. He described Brigham Young as the best and holiest man in the world, and said he did not wonder at the sisters falling in love with him. Every good man, he said, ought to have more than one wife. He said he would advise the editors who abused them to consult their works, and they would find every thing "as light as taturs." He indulged in a variety of jokes of the same class. The proceedings terminated shortly after ten o'clock. Mn. SPURGEON attended a public meeting of his friends and supporters, who had met him at Park street Chapel, on Monday last, for the purpose of promoting the building of a large tabernacle for Mr. Spurgeon. Mr. Spurgeon made a statement to the meeting of the success which had attended the efforts of the promoters of the scheme, and the position in which matters at present sto od. In doing so he alluded to the services held in the Surrey-hall:— " He would not pain their feelings by alluding to the untoward circumstances attending their first meeting at the Surrey Music-hall. It was a painful prelude to a mcst magnificent result, and Satan never met with a greater failure than he did in that attempt at coercion. Had it not been for the lamentable accident which took place on that occasion, so many thousands would have never been brought within the sound of the Gospel." Referring to the want of a large building, Mr. Spurgeon said Sir S. M. Peto had promised him 1001. donation when the foundation-gone of such a building was laid, and another 100/. when it was finished, besides a promise of further assistance. As regarded funds, they had in the bank a sum of 4,0001. towards the erection of the building. DR. LETHEBT, in his periodical sanitary return for the last six weeks, reports the public, health to " indicate an average condition." WHAT TO DO WITH THE WASTE GROUND OF NEW FARRINGDON-STREET was discussed on Wednesday, at a meeting of the board of governors and directors of the united parishes of St. Andrew, Holborn, and St. George the Martyr, held at the boardroom, Gray's-inn-lane, when the following resolution, moved by Mr. Watson, was unanimously adopted That a committee be appointed to wait upon the Board of Works for this district, and for the district of Clerken well, to urge upon them the necessity of their pressing the Corporation of the City of London to take active measures to encourage the covering of the waste ground in Saffron hill, St. Sepulchre, and vicinity, as speedily as possible. Mr. Watson stated, in the course of an address be delivered on the occasion, that the act for making the new street Was passed twenty years ago, and when the Clerkenwell commissioners could not carry it out it was transferred to the City, and an additional tax laid upon coals to defray the cost, so that the corporation were acting as trustees for the benefit of the public. It had been computed that 1,600 houses had been pulled down for making the new street, which, at an average of ten persons to a house, made a population of 16,000 persons displaced to seek a home elsewhere. This depopulation had caused a great increase in the local taxation upon the remain ing inhabitants. There was the strongest necessity for pressing the corporation to sell the land for building, to complete the improvements for the benefit of the public and put an end to the injury sustained by its non-completion. THE REV. ROBERT MAGUIRE, the recently elected incumbent of Clerkenwell, has commenced a series of services for the working classes in the parish church. The church is thrown open during the whole of the week for working-class services ; all the seats are free, the body of the church and the upper galleries being reserved for working men. Several eminent preachers give their support to the services. A MAN was picked up in the Haymarket last Saturday morning in a dying condition. He had poisoned himself with laudanum, and died twenty minutes after his admission into Charing-cross Hospital. He was dressed like a respectable trades. man. THE EARLY CLOSING ASSOCIATION held a meeting at Exeter-hall this week, under the presidency of Mr. Alderman Wire, who stated that the result of the efforts of that association bad been that the hours of labour had now been considerably abridged in nearly all branches of trade, and that advantage had even been extended to the profession of the law, to which he belonged, in which, owing to the exer. tions of the association, the Saturday half•holiday had been almost universally adopted. It still, how. ever, remained that the benefit of the weekly half holiday should be extended to the other classes of the community. The principal obstacle he saw at present to that being carried out was the custom of paying wages late on Saturday afternoons; but he thought that wages might be paid earlier on that day, or the payment of them changed to another day, and were either of these courses adopted he saw no reason why the Saturday half-holiday should not be enjoyed by every class of the community in the metropolis. The meeting was addressed by several clergymen and gentlemen, and various reso lutions in accordance with the objects of the associa tion were proposed and carried. Two HOUSES in Artillery-lane, Spitalfields, fell down last Sunday night. No lives fortunately were lost, though the inhabitants were severely bruised. The lane has been occupied upwards of a century by secondhand-clothes dealers and miscellaneous curio sity-shops, kept principally by Jews. Five adjoining houses have been condemned by the district surveyor, and the occupants ordered to leave. A TREMENDOUS FIRE broke out at Bowles Wharf, Ratcliffe, on Monday night. The fire was first dis covered in the hey and clover premises, and rapidly spread to the other storehouses on the wharf. The engines of the fire brigade and the two river engines were soon at work; yet never was the ineffi ciency of water to suppress a fire more apparent. For hours were some thousands of tons of water thrown every minute upon the burning mass, but without efiect. The fire raged, caught building after building, and destroyed no less than six distinct premises before it burned itself cut and consented to be subdued. VroVincial. THE Goon PEOPLE OF BATH made general holiday of Wednesday on the occasion of the two Russian guns presented to the city by Lord Panmure being deposited in the Royal Victoria Park. Besides the ceremony connected with the guns, there was a grand flower show iu the afternoon at Sydney-gardens, a ball in the evening at the Guildhall, and perfor mances at the theatre, in addition to which the Foresters, Odd Fellows, and other bodies had displays, and fetes, and galas on their own account. The Royal Victoria Park is partly private, partly public property. The resting-place of the guns has been fixed in the latter portion of the park on each side of the obelisk erected in honour of her Majesty. The town council of Newark, on receiving their Russian gun from Lord Panmure, objected to defray the cost of mounting. The trophy has been placed on one of the terraces in the Castle bath-grounds, which are not open to the public except on payment. THE HARVEST HOMES held in Norfolk and Berßk have been very successful. At Buxton, near Norwich, last week, the harvest-home was celebrated first with a solemn church service, the bishop of the diocese preaching; after which a feast was given by the N icar to his 500 parishioners ; and the day closed with games and athletic sports. At Uffington, in Berks, a similar festival took place ; while the 2•23 Redhill Reformatory boys last week celebrated the close of their harvest work by pines and a pod dinner.