The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-12 00:00:00

THE WOMEN OF UTAH.

The monster petition from Utah to Congress, asking
that the Territory be admitted as a State, signed by
23,360 Mormon women, is worthy of some particular
scrutiny. The number would indicate that every
woman in Utah had signed the petition and even
then there must be attached the names of many very
young girls. The census of 1.870 shows a population
for the Territory of a little less than 87,000. The
male population was 44,121, and the female 42,665.
The number of families, which is in- Mormondom a
pretty accurate measure of the number of women, was
17,210. The number of houses was 18,290, which may
still more nearly approximate the number of women.
It must be remembered the girls marry very young;
and if by women are meant those above 18 years of
age, 18,000 in 1870 is an ample estimate. The increase
in the Territory has not been great since 1870; and the
immigration has been largely of minors, so that it
must be considered extremely doubtful if there are at
the present time 23,000 women above 18 years old
in Utah. The petition must have been got up by the
exercise of the Church authority, and it should have
no more weight with the country than if the names
had all been written in Salt Lake by Brigham Young
himself. As to the Church and polygamy, it is safe to
say that it is heartily supportel by the women of the
Territory, except in the northern part, in the larger
towns, where the Gentile population is large enough to
exercise influence either by precept or example. There
the Mormon girls prefer to marry "Gentiles," and
cannot be restrained by the Church. In the southern
towns where the population is entirely Mormon, the
women are never known to question the authority of
the Church, and are led to regard polygamous mar-
riages as a special means of salvation.—New York
Times.

ELECTRICITY AND RAILWAY
TRAVELLING.
In London, on Friday evening, at the weekly evening
meeting of the Royal Institution, a paper "On the Applica-
tions of Electricity to the Protection of Life on Railways "
was road by Mr. W. 11. Preece, M. lust, CE., and
one of the Divisional Engineers of the Postal Telegraph
system.
Mr. Preece set out by proposing to establish three
propositions—viz., 1, that railway travelling is dan-
gerous; 2, that railway travelling is safe; and, 3, that
the danger is potential, and the safety actual; and
that the one has been converted into the other by the
operation of scientific thought, and by the applica-
tion of scientific skill. The lecturer regarded the first
proposition as self-evident, and scarcely calling for
proof—a view of the case which, unhappily, has been
brought home to very many persons during the past
twelve months. As regarded the second proposition,
the lecturer adduced some very interesting statistics,
showing that in proportion to the total number of
persons who met with violent deaths, only a small
number were killed on railways. Thus, in 1873, 17,246
persons in England and Wales met_ with &aths of this
description, being an average of 750 per 1,000,000, or
one inl, 354 of the whole population. Of these, less than
1,300—i.e., only about 8 per cent.—met with their
deaths through accidents on railways. Objection
might, perhaps, be taken to the comparison on the
ground that, for the purposes of the paper, the figures
should only have included the number of persons killed
in the act of travelling—whether by road, rail, river,
or at sea—and should not have extended to such forms
of violent death as injuries in mines, mechanical in-
'juries of various kinde, asphyxia, and other forms of
so- called "unclassified violence." A subsequent table,
however, placed the matter on a more intelligible basis
as regards the relative safety of railway travelling
the number of journeys, made, and the number of
passengers ca'rried. Thus, in the three years ending
1849, one passenger was killed from causes beyond
his own control for every 4,782,188 journeys made;
for the four years ending 1859, the proportion was
one., passenger to 8,708,411 journeys made;
for the same period ending ten years later the
propettion was reduced 'to one passo4iger. for:, about
13,000,000 journeys; and for'The three years ending
1873, the proportion had fallen to one passenger for
upwards of 20,000,000 journeys. Taking the average
length of each journey at 10 miles, one passenger is