Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1865-08-05

men most, often Amounted in the holy
bonds Of matrimony, and in the we'll
known disagreement of the wives in
many families. iii some cases they live
harmoniously and lovingly together;
often, il would seem, they have sepa-
rate parts of the same house, or even
separate houses. The first wife is gen.
orally the recognized of society, and
frequently assumes contempt for the
others, regarding them as concubines,
and not wives. But it is dreadful
state of society to any one of fine
feelings and true instincts; it robs mar
ried life of all its sweet sentiment and
companionship; and while it degrades
woman, brutaliZes man, teaching him to
despise and domineer over his wives, over
all wemen.s4It. breeds jealousy, distrust,.
and tempts to infidelity; but the police
system of the church and the commu-
nity is so strict and constant that it is
claimed and believed the latter vice is
very rare. The effect upon the child
rem cannot but help being debasing,
however well they may be guarded and
educated. But it is chief failing,
even scandal to the Mormons, that,
plentifully as they are providing child
rem, who swarm everywhere as did the
locusts in Egypt, they have organized
no free schoolsystem.s iSchoolsare held
in every ward in the city, and probably
in every considerable. village, in build
iugs provided for evening religious
meetings under the direction of the lo-
cal bishops butea tuition fee is exacted
for all who attend, and the poor are
practically shut out. The anti-polyga-
iaists should agitate at once and ear
nestly to reform this evil-it is a
strong point against the dominant
party, and weak point in the welfare
of the territory. 1t is a good and en-
couraging sign to learn from intelligent
sources that as the young girls, daugh-
tiers of the Mormons, grow up to owo-
manhood, they are indisposed to polyg-
amy, and seek husbands among the
Gentiles rather than among their own
faith. 81 .-f-
The soldiers of Camp Douglas, near
this city, are illustrating one of the
ways in which polygamy will fade away
before the popular principle. Two COM
panies who went home to California
last fall took about twenty-five wives
with them, recruited from the Mormon
| hocks. There are now some fifty or
more women in the camp, who have
fed thither from town for protection,
or been seduced away from unhappy
homes and fractional husbands; and all,
or nearly all, find new husbands among
the soldiers. Only to-day, a man with
three daughters, living in the city, APP
piled to Col. George for leave to move
up to the camp for residence, in order,
as he said, to save his children from po-
lygamy, into which the bishops and
elders of the church were urging them.
The camp authorities tell many like
stories; also of sadder applications, if
possible, for relief from actual poverty
and from persecution in town. The
Mormons have no poor-house, and say
they have no poor, permitting none by
relieving all through work and gifts.
But the last winter was so long and
severe, with wood at $50 and $40 cord,
that there was much real suffering, and
the soldiers yielded to extensive de-
mands upon the charity that the church
authorities had neglected to fulfill, or
absolutely denied.