Morning journal and courier., 1881-12-14

ant bearing on the solution of the Mormon problem. They have just completed new church edifice in Salt Lake City, and now hold regular services with congregation of nearly two, hundred persons. These people Smith, but renounce polygamy. Many of them are old polygamists who have given up their former relations. The men have made honest and reasonable division of their prop erty with their wives, and have provided for the support and education of their children, and there has been no trouble. The Salt Lake Tribune encourages the movement, and expresses the brightest hopes for Utah. if the reform becomes general, and says that all contention and strife between Mormons and Gentiles would cease, that the territory would soon wear the crown of Statehood and that
 sthe honors and the opportunities which are within the grasp and reasonable hope of oth- CT American boys would wait the same way upon Mormon boys and the whole face of Utah would be tr ansfgured."
 On the first of January next the letting of convict labor by contract in the penal institu- tions of California will cease. When Cover nor Perkins assumed the duties of the exec utive office he applied himself to the task of discovering or suggesting proper employ ment for the eauyictss Ehieh should not work an injustice on the free skilled laborer. His conclusions were embodied in message to the Legislature, and the latter at once made appropriations for the erection of buildings and the purchase of machinery necessary to carry out the new plans. The buildings are now up and the machinery in and on Janua- ry 1st the warden of San Quentin will put 1,5OO prisoners to work on the manufacture of jute bagging and bags, of which there is an immense consumption on the Pacific coast. Millions of these bags are imported annual ly, and only an insignificant number are manufactured, principally by Chinese labor. Thus, under Governor Perkins plan, this in dustry in San Quentin will compete with no free white labor, while it will supply an arti- cle in constant and large demand.
 The Albany Lao Journal says that those who have complained of Judge Porter's method of examining Guiteau do not esti- mate fairly his powers and ''fail to appre- ciate the greatest genius of the New York bar" It says further :- "We have been filled with admiration of his cross examina- tion of Guiteau. He meant to make it 8 trial of wits between himself and the witness, in which he is perfectly satisfied to be worsted. He was perfectly content to let Guiteau 'break him down. It was far from his purpose to catch him in lies or contradiction. His cue was to induce Guiteau to exhibit all his mental powers his provision, his cunning, his quickness, his reconciliation, his concentratiyeness-i order to show that the man has remarkable reasoning faculties, and thus is not insane, or rather that he has the power of distinguish ing right from wrong. To this end he bold ly challenged the witness to the combat, and the witness, seduced by his overweening conceit, has readily fallen into the trap. He would rather surpass Porter in professional cleverness than keep judicious lookout for his own neck; and the judge has humored him to the top of his bent. It was this ad- mirable method that betrayed Guiteau into that fatal boast of his long reconciliation, and especially of the event of the eve ming of July l. In like manner the judge has bullied the prisoner into an unconscious betrayal of his rancorous motive.n