The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-09-01

clothes" and divers articles of cheap jewelry,
and even given her parents a COW and load
of pumpkins, intimating, furthermore, that he
would take the other daughter to wife after she
got little bigger. But all did not avail and
the young woman, though still in the harcm,
has not yet become reconciled to the fifth part
of husband. After relating this fact, my
narrator went on to say that the hard lot of
her sister had good deal to do in determining
her to embrace the first chance that offered for
running away from her parents, who, she real
ly believed, would, in time, have been brought
to consent to her being ''sealed" to this same
lecherous old scoundrel. Already, too, another
prominent Mormon, Elder Cannon,
BIG GUN IN THE CHURCH,
has limited to her father that he was deeply
concerned about this girls spiritual welfare j;
and, although ne had two wives already, he
as to take another, just as a means of increa-
sing the number of the faithful and elevating
her to greater dignity hereafter. Indeed, it
seems that this fellow had set his heart seri-
ously upon securing this child for his third
wife, thereby causing a good deal OF Jealousy
on the part of her quasi brother-ln.law, VINO
did not quite like the idea of her being placed
wholly beyond his reach. Strange as 1t NAV
seem, there is more jealousy and keener RI
yalry between these over-marrled men 1or the
Young girls than prevails among the young and
unmarried males a state of things sometimes
parallelled in the brute creation, where the
emasculated animals become, under certain
conditions, the most troublesome members OF
the herd.s
Not however, to dismiss this exemplary ell
der Just yet, may say that he will be recol-
lected by my old San Franciscans as one OF
fha MnrO IN
Zion, and who labored for their conversion TOR
several years prior to 1856 when, joining the
deluded people whom he had persuaded to sac
rifce their property, under the impression that
the entire Gentle world was about to be de-
stroyed, he returned to Salt Lake. where he
has since remained, having become sufficiently
demoralized to rank as a leader among the
Saints. I myself well remember this fellow
Cannon when laboring in your city-a demure
and unctious person-quite unlike, in appear
ance and professions, what he is at present.
Then he seemed modest, exemplary sort of
man, had but one wife-a decent, happy-look-
ing young woman-both of them repudiating
polygamy, and denying that it formed any por-
ton of the Mormon religion. Last week l
saw this couple again, but how fearfully chang
ed. She weary-looking and sad, evidently
broken-hearted woman !; he coarse, cold, vnl-
pure in their young lives ruin. With dis
regard of the sanctity of marriage has come
loss of mutual esteem and all that makes the
conjugal state holy and happy. George @.
Cannon is now editor and publisher OF the
Deseret News, practical polygamist, man of
note, and an Elder in the church but I Won
der if he considers this good exchange for
his once pure young wife, or that it can atone
for the mischief he wrought in San Francisco
in breaking up families and causing the ruin
Of hundreds of poor people by persuading
them to sacrifice their property and repair to
Salt Lake? 1 suppose he does, for man can
be reconciled to almost anything when he has
once surrendered himself to the dominion of
lust, and has given up "to believe lie"
THE PRIESTHOOD AND LEADERS AIM TO DE-
BASE AND BEsTIALIzE THE PEOPLE.
If space would allow 1 might fill columns
in writing out the artless revelations given by
these girls touching the private habits and in
ner life of this people, all showing general
tendency to animalism and low state of NOR
ais. And it forms feature of this system that
the leaders-those who occupy high positions
and set up for teachers-are really the most
active in corrupting the masses. Not only do
they seek to debauch the public mind by their
examples, but also by their speech, both in
private and on public occasions. To destroy
all reverence for sacred things and break down
everything like womanly modesty seems to be
their great aim. Hence, even in the pulpit
the most blasphemous expressions are indllged
in, and married men take delight in relating
their experiences, not only in the presence of
adults but even before young girls and their
own children. Nothing can be more disgust
ing, and even shocking, than the remarks some
times made with reference to these matters.
When in Salt Lake City frequently heard
these things alluded to as being legitimate sub
jects for jesting. On one occasion no less
parsonage than Daniel Ell. Wells, one of the
Mormon presidents, and avery father in Israel,
entertained promiscuous assemblage of the
faithful with detailed account of all that was
said and done on the first night after his mar
riage with young girl, who constituted his
ninth or tenth wife. This beast began by de-
scribing her person, the terror she was in, the
methods he adopted for soothing her agitation,
and all the minutie of his horrid carnival of
lust, in language so gross that even some of his
female auditors were seen to blush This is no
fiction. have the statement from credible
and disinterested source (; nor is this process of
corrupting the public morals confined to speech
alone. These people have orgies that would
put the Hindoos to shame, and during the per-
formance of which an entire exposure of the
persons of those admitted constitutes the least
revolving portion of the proceedings. This
may all seem incredible, but it is nevertheless
true; nor will any one who has spent much
time at Salt Lake and witnessed the debasing
effects of Mormonism on the people, be indis-
posed to give IL credence.
did not intend, when commencing to write
this letter, to make such a long dissertation on
Mormonism, its immoraltics and its victims !;
but having seen and heard so much of its ac
cursed workings while tarrying at Salt Lake,
and having the matter brought fresh to my
mind by conversing with these unfortunate
girls, could not resist the impulse to speak of
it more at length than was my original pur-
pose.