Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1858-05-06
M0rmon news.

lex 1ODa, an eA-dlgn
mons. who escaped recently from Salt Lak'
with his family, and is now in this city
He ;s native of Switzerland, a man o
great intelligence and liberal education, ar
accomplished linguist, and possessing rare
conversational powers. He has Travelled
over and is familiar with every part Of Eu.
rope, was distinguished in his own land
and in Russia for his scientific attainments,
and was formerly prominent official IN
his native town of Lausanne. But not
withstanding all this, he became victim
10 the strange delusion of Mormonism, and
attested his sincerity by forsaking his high
honorable and Independent position at home
and journeying with his family to Salt Lake
in 1854, in the confident expectation to
find there the Zion of God towards which
his cultivated enthusiasm and intense relig-
ious zeal had turned with the highest and
hottest aspirations.
On discovering the disgusting character
of Mormonism, Loba turned his attention
TO means of escape, and by concealing his
real sentiments he managed to escape in
April last and has just arrived at Leaven-
worth with his family, in reduced condi-
tion. He says the Mormons will not resist
the troops.
They have very little ammunition, no
5an-powder .factory, no material from
which to make the ponder, none of tile ap-
pliances essential to that purpose, nor any
single man who knows hoic to make an
oance Of explosive material, ecsn if his life
depended upon 1t. Nor have they artille-
ry with the exception of single piece of
cannon, two FOUNDER, one of pair given
them long since by the United States--the
other having burst while Mr.. Loba was in
the Valley. He asserts that they have no
military knowledge, even if they had arms
that their talk about their battaions and
regiments and legions is the veriest hum
bug i,naginable-and that their pretences
of the possession of abundant armaments
are falsehoods unmitigated. They have
no iron of which to east cannon,-and if
they had the material, they have no foun-
dry, nor any machinery for boring them,
nor any mechanic competent TO the work.
True, there is an abundance Of iron ore
three hundred miles or more south of Salt
Lake City, but it is highly magnetic, and
up to the time when Mr.. Loba left, although
barge sums had been expended in expert
meuting, all efforts to melt it down and
render it fit for use had failed. Neither
are the Mormons any better off ia the mat
ter of manufacturing small arms. They
have some few gun t'nkers among them;
but, as an evidence of their utter incompe- |
tency, he mentions the fact that no one of
them was able TO make screw for him, |
to replace oue which he had lost from re-
vciver Of peculiar contraction.
Mr.. Loba estimates the total population !
of the Valley at $4,000 souls. OF these,
counting every male fron l 5 to go years of
age, he estimates that there are not to ex
ceed 1900 capable of bearing arms-while |
not more than $500 of the whole number
in his opinion, would make even passable
soldiers under drilling by skillful men.-I
Not one in ten of the entire population
have fro arms of any description; sad al
large proportion Of those that have are out
of repair aud wfrthless. He has no conf
dence in the statement that the Mormons
irare fortified Echo Canon, except it may
he by digging bitches, and poising rocks to
he rolled down from the overhanging cliffs.
Their boasts of mines under the road, and
all that sort of thing, he scouts as idle non-
sense. In short, he considers the Mormons
destitute of any effective power of resist
enee TO eeen the small force under com
nand of General Johnson, and maintains
that Brigham Young's entire reliance has |
been based upon his hope of being able to
deter the United States from attempting |
to deal with him, by lying boasts of his |
ability to wage successful resistance.
He believes that when Brigham finds
his braggadoeio has failed, and that the U.
States authority are determined to pursue
him, he will havea Especial retaliation from
God" instructing him to retire from before
the Philistines. In obedience to these di-
rections he will go off with his $500 Dan
ties or aDestroying Angels, and when the
troops arrive at Salt Lake, will be found |
missing. They will probably go north
ward to Vancouver's Island, or possibly to
fhe Russian POSSESSIONS
Mr.. Loba represents horrible state of
,natters as regards the hand cart trains
which have crossed the plains. He says
that two Mormons visited England and
collected, in sums of SIS pounds to fam- |
Iy, n large amount of money, which was to
furnish means of transportation across the
plains, but on reaching the Westera fron-
tier, the deluded folowers-twenty-five
hundred in number-were told that by a |
new revelation they, in order to try their
faith, were to go across with hand CARTS
Six were apporlioned to each cart and al
lowed seventeen pounds of baggage to each
person. -
Thus twenty-five hundred honest, sim
pie souls, full of honest faith and zeai,-l
old men and young, gentle women and ten |
der children, plunged into the wilderness,
never doubling the result. Sad to relate,
of that entire band only about tvo hundred
frest-5iaen, STARRING and emanciated be-
iinqs, lired to tell the story Of their suffer
mas! Mr.. Loba, himself, witnessed the
entrance of the survirors,-many even of
whom were compelled to sHbmit TO the ru-
dest kind of surgery for the amputation of
limbs already frozen TO death! Twenty
three hundred of the devoted band had fal-
len by the way, tortured victims of hunger
and cold, some of them indeed torn by |
famished wolves, while life still struggled
for the victory over Punishment and frost
The picture is too horrible to contemplate