The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-08-08
be drawn into other channels than those which
lead to her wharves

A Good Look ut Mormondom Through
tho Lorgnette of Mrs. Eliza Webb
Young.
The account which we print this morning
of an interview with Mrs. Eliza Webb Young,
the seventeenth wife of the pillar of Mormon
dom, will interest all who either have entered,
or are about to- enter, or are anxious to got
out of the married state. The description
which the interviewer gives is not compliment
tary to polygamy as it exists in Utah, ana is
emphatically unfavorable to Brigham Young.
The lady from whom the facts are cleaned
speaks with an energy evidently inspired by
suffering. At the early age of twenty-five, when
Brigham Young first met her, she had already
been married and divorced, and, needless of
several suitors who were anxious to claim her
hand, led retired life with her father and
mother in Little Cottonwood. Here she was
sought by that venerable Brighter of female
youth and innocence, Brigham Young. If we
are to receive Mrs. Eliza's account without
questioning, he was inspired more by vanity
than any other passion, and sought her hand
because it pleases his amour proprs to display
to the world succession of new, young wives.
Exuding at once that unctuous palaver and
amorous magnetism for which those women
who have come under his influence claim
that he is renowned, he enticed her ear with
''good counsel" and persuaded her that when
she married again she should marry, not for
love, but for the sake of having some one at
hand who could give her sound advice. We
confess that this is way of looking at the
subject which would never have occurred to
us. A woman sometimes marries man on
account of his beauty, but on account of his
capacity to lecture, never s.s f-Yrsl
Having proceeded thus far, Brigham next
endeavored to prove to his victim that he was
that wise man upon whom it was prudent for
her to fix her affections. He then introduced
other inducements. in the shape of the
offer ,of house and one thousand dollars
her that his only object was not
the qualification of selfish passion,
but the salvation of her poor, perishing soul,
and her elevation to queenhood. Meanwhile
he got the better of her brother in business
negotiations and got the whole of poor
ELIAS family so under his thumb that (still
following the line of the lady's accountl she
resolved to sacrifice herself and become his
wife, in order to save her brother from his
Vaccinations and please her parents. The
upshot was that they were married, the tri-
umphant bridegroom presenting her with
three dress patterns and a fifty dollar note as
wedding gift.
A few months after the marriage the pro-
gramme was changed. Brigham not only left
off visiting her, but even sent her and her
mother to superntend one of his farms. Here he
left them in almost total neglect, so that Mrs.
Eliza counted herself happy when she could
get five pounds of sugar, quarter Of pound
of tea and q few candles-beautiful fulfil
ments, these, of the ante-nuptial promise of
probationary to the tune Of one thousand
dollars year. Finally she took to keeping
boarders, and amid all the troubles Of one OF
the most trying vocations on earth, during
which all she obtained from her husband
was two calico dresses, she was attacked with
pleurisy. Resolving to appeal to the humanity
of Brigham, since all appeals to other feelings
seemed likely to be wasted, she managed to
reach his Office and made known her wretch
edness and needs. Instead of ordering her
medical attendance and supplying her with
every comfort an invalid in her condition
could demand, he directed his commissary to
give her ''two bits worth of fresh meat" and
sent her on her way. This time her sense of
outrage was strung to the highest point. She
sold the goods which the house contained by
auction and resolved to quit forever the man
who had done nothing to justify the name of
husband except make promises he had never
fulfilled. Whether successful or not in her
aims, she resolved that, for the sake of other
women who had suffered like her, she would
make every effort to dissociate herself from one,
of whose affection she could only claim the
one-seventeenth share, and who had even dis
owned that share by treating her with tyranny
and meanness,
Mrs. ELIAS story is eminently an interesting
one. There is no unpleasant self-conscious-
ness about it. She does not smirk and droop her
head like sewing machine girl in plate glass
window, but answers with frankness and
courage the interrogatories put to her, without
any frippery Of feeling or manufactured emo
ton. Inadvertences there may be in some of
her remarks but they are the inadvertencies of
wronged, disguised and indignant woman,
rebelling against the outrage which her sex
endures at the hands of the despot Of Utah.
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