The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-14 00:00:00

Artemus Ward,

This gentleman last evening made his first appearance
as a public entertainer at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly,
and an overflowing audience assembled to give him
hearty welcome. The new entertainment is called "Life
Among the Mormons ;" and although it lasted but a few
minutes over an hour—on the principle, we presume; that
brevity is the soul of wit—it resulted in a great and per"
feet success. Mr. Browne, or, speaking of him under his nom
de plume, "Artemus Ward," has become familiar in England
in consequence of his humorous writings, which have front
time to time been received with such pleasure iu this coun-
try ; and this circumstance, taken in connection with the
reputation he has achieved in America, filled his lecture-
room last evening to excess. The programme was written
in a comic vein, and it commenced by stating that Dir.
Artemus Ward would call on any of the citizens of Lon-
don and explain any jokes in his narrative which they may
not understand. It also stated that the panorama used to
illustrate the lecture was rather worse than panoramas
usually are, but it was amply sufficient to give a very vivid
idea of the distant region of the Great Salt Lake City—the
stronghold of the Mormons. Artemus Ward commenced
by showing the steamer he travelled in in a portion of in°
journey to Utah, but advised his audience not to select it
provided they felt disposed to undertake the voyage, be-
cause " She was'at a good'un." Arriving in the Land of
Gold, he gives a laughable description of the streets 0
San Francisco, and then he proceeds to the great Desert;
and this crossed we have a bird's-eye view of the Great
Salt Lake City, and here Artemus gives a little serious
talk touching the Mormons. At the principal hotel in
Main-street, he informs us, the landlord sells
nothing stronger than butter, and then h°
proceeds to detail his interview with Brigham
Young, chief of the Mormons, and his wives. The got"
mon's religion, he told his audience, was singular, but has
wives plural, and without affecting any virtuous indigna-
tion, Artemus Ward denounced that as a scandal and °
disgrace. At Utah they have a theatre, and in order that
a notion may be formed of their style of performance, w°
give the following sly bit of raillery from the printed pro-
gramme :—" The Lady of Lyons' was produced here 3
short time since, but failed to satisfy a Mormon audience,
on account of there being only one Pauline in it. The Pig'
was revised at once. It was presented the next night with
15 Paulines in the cast, and was a perfect success. All
these statements may be regarded as strictly true.
Ward would not deceive an infant." He next gives
a sketch of the Mormon Temple as it is and (1°
it is to be ; and all they have got to do, he says, to earl
out the design of the architect is to build the temple,
which'
when completed, is to surpass everything on earth. )le
concludes his racy, piquant, and interesting narrative with
a description of a prairie on fire— owning that he did nOt
stop to see it, as most people get out of the way when :or
thing of the kind is likely to happen. Tho style of the
new entertainer is perfectly unique ; in fact he talks, as the
saying is, "like a book." There is no attempt at imitationt
and although Mr. Browne was labouring under evident in-
disposition and nervousness, he manfully struggled on to
the end, and on making his bow he was greeted with ,most
enthusiastic applause.