The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-06-23


OF all and dozen instances of
most Now, these illustrations of mine are
not, like those of Mormon eating publica-
tons, anonymous ffetiens I have names
for each of them. Some of the individu-
ais live close TO me. Those whom have
ventnred to speak to corroborate my
friends statement. One of them tells me
she could name "scores" of the same kind.
1t being then beyond all doubt that wo-
men here have reversed the whole modern
theory of the conjugal relation, have de-
ciared married love to be divisible and the
impulses of sexual affection more powerful
than the intersexual, have shrunk from
matrimony unless a friend or relative
shared the husband with them, or suddenly
broken in upon the even tenor of monog-
amy By suggesting an additional wife
there is, with all ones innate aversion to a
system which is capable of such odious
abnormalsms, a most interesting aud
battling problem for study. 1t is a regular
hedgehog of o problem. If you could only
catch hold of it by the nose or the tail, you
could scrunch it up easily. But it has
spines all over. 1t is at once provocative
and unapproachable.
remember once in India giving a tame
monkey lump of sugar inside corked
bottle. The money was of an inquiring
kind, and it nearly killed it, Sometimes
in an impulse of disgust it would throw
the bottle away, out of its own reach, and
then BE- distracted till it was given back to
it. others it would sit with a counter
anct the most intense detection, con-
ten ing the bottled sugar and then, as
if T. lg itself together for another effort
at ion, would sternly take up the prob
int i
way and try to drink the sugar
he neck, and then. suddenly revers-
nv to catch ii as 1t fell out at the
bor1e4a. Under the impression that it could
capture it by surprise it kept rapping its
teeth against the glass in futile bites, and
warming to the pursuit of the revolving
lump. used TO tie itself in regular knots
round the bottle. Fits of the most lu-
dicrous melancholy would alternate with
these -spasms of furious speculation, and
how the matter would have ended it is i'm
possible to say. But the monkey one
night cot AWAY and took the bottle with it,
and it has always been a delight to me to
think that whole forestfuls of monkeys
have by this time puzzled themselves into
fits over the great problem of bottled sugar
What profound theories those long tailed
philosophers have evolved? What pOlemi-
cal acrimony that bottle must have pro
yoked! And what a Confucius the origi-
nal monkey must have become. A single
morning with such a SanhedriIn discussing
such matter would surely have satiated
even a Swift with satire.
Taking then polygamy to be the bottle
and myself or any other profound and
learned thinker-say the editor of the local
TrtBane-to be the monkey, it appears to
49, olF +fTyoC Int on
are these: Either smash the whole thing
up altogether or else fail back upon that
old doctrine of wise men that morality"
is after all matter of geography.
An oriental legend shows us Allah sitting
in conversation with man. A cockroach
comes along and Allah stamps on it.
what did you do that for?" asks the hui
man looking at the ruined insect. Be
cause am God Almighty" was the reply.
Now, polygamy can be smashed fiat if
the states choose to show their power to
do so. But no man who takes part in
that demolition must suppose that in so
doing he is -rescuing a community from
degradation and saving them in spite of
If left alone, polygamy win
die out Mormons deny this, but | feel
sure that they know they are wrong
when they deny it, for nothing but a
pcrzat ual miracle of loaves and fishes will
allh, polygamy and families of forty pos
SIT = hen the population and food sup
pix one to talk the position over seri
ou>ls between them. The expense of plu-
raiity will before long prohibit plurality.
''The fashionable milliner" is the most
formidable adversary that the system has
yet encountered. A $40 bonnet is stag
gering argument againstit. When women
we're contented with sunshades, and made
hem for themselves, the husband of many
wives could afford to be lavish and to in
lulge his household in diversity of head
gear. But that old serpent, the fashion
able milliner, has got over the garden wall
and Lilith and Eve are no longer content
with primitive garments of home manu-
facture. By the way, it is curious that it
should be charged against the Mormons
hat they have made Adam a polygamist.
It is not Mormon invention at all. For
rs is well known, legends far older than
Moses writings declare that Eve married
into plurality, that Lilith was the first
wife" of our great progenitorl. No. Po
ygamy before'long will be impossible ex-
cept to the rich, and in an agricultural
restricted in area and further
restricted by the scarcity of water, there
ian Il yer be many rich" men. As it is,
inc cost of plurality was on several oc-
,asions referred to by Mormons whom /
met turing my tour, and | know one man
who has for three years postponed his
second marriage as he does not consider
hat his means justify it, while / fancy
t will not be disputed by any one who has
inquired into polygamy, that as general
.ule prudential considerations control the
system. Polygamy then, / sincerely be-
ieve, carries its own antidote with it, and
f left alone will rapidly cure itself. In
he meantime it has not degraded the
that practises it, and those
who take part in smashing it
Up must not think it has The
dormons are a peasant people with many
If the faults of peasant life but with many
If the best human virtues as well. They
ire conspicuously Industrious, honest and
ober
There is very little in common between
oriental polygamy and Mormon plurality,
,ut for all purposes of sensible discussion
hey are sufficiently differential by the
Jingle fact that the Oriental is the very
ATTEST human being under the sun and that
he Mormon is the hardest working. TO
he former every bride means greater self
Indulgence; to the latter it means less If /
mother point of difference We're needed, |
t is this: That the eastern objects to |
aree families. If he has one son to per- |
orm his obsequies he is content, for he |
as satisfied religion and secured his own |
l. T. II