Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-07-14
MORMON MISERY.
Some Of the Suferings and Wretehedness
Of the Women-The Effect OF
Plural Marriage
Upsn the Real Wives Of the Saints-A
Pitiful Recital Of Wrongs and
Outrages.

Salt Lake correspondence of the Chicago
Inter Ocean: Our. local papers have had
something 10 cay OF late concerning the
pitiable condition of an insane woman who
wsnders about our streets, and pays an coca
sioual land most unwelcome) visit TO the
house that was once her home, but Is now
occupied by her husband and one OF his
plural wives. In this weman's case a brief
period OF incarceration in our model insane
asylum completed the work which polygamy
began. II she had been perfectly sane when
consigned to the teader mercies Of the keep
ers of that institution the result might have
been the came. First wives, who are said to
be possessed of q devil" if they do not take
kindly to polygsmy, have been sent to the
asylum to have the evil spirit exercised. The
following history may serve to show how this
is done:
Elder NJ Of this city, had a wife whe
made his home very unpleasant by always
meeting him with tears and reproaches when
be returned from a protracted visit to wife
No. 2. One day, when Mrs. NJ was at
the washtub, her husband came in and
offered to take the children out for a ride, so
that she might finish her work without him
drance. The offer wss accepted, and, stand
ing in the doorway, the mother watched her
husband as he drove away with her children,
the youngest a baby six months old.
SHE NEVER SAW THOSE AGAIN.
The Afternoon passed. Sunset came, and
still they did not return. Hour after hour
she watched and waited in vain, until the
night wore away. Morning brought the hus-
oand alone.
81 am afraid you have been anxious about
| u.s." he said blandly. "The fact is, l look
the children down to Sarah's, and she was 20
bent on having us stay t0supper that l could
not refuse. After supper it was too late to
lake the baby out, and 30 we stsid over night.
Sarah has done the best she could for the
| children, and she wants me TO bring you down
to spend the day. Come! The baby needs
you"
Ths mother hsstened her preparations, en-
tered the wagon that stood at the gate, and
was taken, not to the house of the second
wife, where her children were, but to the in
sane asylum. She is there to-day. To a
friend of the writer, who sometimes visits her,
she said:
off 1 could only zee my children, 1 could
bear anything else"
In tie bleak, bare Mormon battle-ground,
on the hill overlooking our beautiful CITY,
many women have found a quieter and safer
refuge thsn the asylum offers. A friend Of
mine who, strangely enough, found il impos-
sible to live happily with her husband after
, n. mao married the servant girl, went Tor
| counsel to sister Eliza Snow, one Of Brigham
Young's plural wives.
"You must pray for a spirit OF resigna-
tiou," Sister Eliza said, piously, after listen
| ing 10 her tale, of sorrow.
81 do pray" was the reply. shut the more
l pray the worse l feel, and if that girl stays
! in the house l shall die"
ode, theD," was the uurutfied rejoinder.
"The plains, from the Missouri river to Salt
| Lake, are strewed with the bones Of those
| who were not stfeng Enough to bear the cross
of polygamy, and the burying ground is fill
| of women who felt IS you feel; but in the
celestial kingdom every one of these WON N
will wear a martyrs crown"
1t will be perceived from the foregoing bit
Of history that the time has been when first
wives who sank into the grave under the
burdens which polygamy imposes were
thought worthy Of a martyrs Crowd; but
| nowadays 1t IS the gtl Who supplants a
| wife and takes her piece 10 The hoGse and in
| The husbands heart, who poses 3 a martyr.
! Sister Belle Harris, whose i'm p%risoument for
| contempt OF court has resolved i self into de-
tention in a well-furnishe d rood in the war
den's house, where she received her friends,
and where her table was spread with delica-
| cies contributed by her admirers, is the latest
| candidate for the honors of martyrdom.
When a charge of bigamy was preferred
sgainst the saint 10 whom this young woman
| is said to have been sealed, Sister Belle, his
repuled second wife; was brought before the
grand jury as a witness in the case, and re-
quired 10 an.wer under oath the following
lnterogatories:
"Are you a married woman? and il 30,
when we're you married, and 10 whom?"
WHAT SISTER BELLE REPLIED.
IT, aaoh anI oil IF tbesa 90, p,an,
questions as the Mormon press styles them,
Sister Belle replied; at is none of your
business. You have no right 10 pry into my
family affairs"
Judge iTwiss, who presides in the Second
Judicial District, not being able to appreciate
the force Of his logic, instructed the young
woman that she must answer the question
| put to her, and upon her determined and
| persistent refusal to do So committed her for
| contempt of court. 1t is all ewing TO this
| action of Judge TwiE3 that we have a real
live martyr in Salt Lake to-day-s martyr
| for whose benefit the Mormon press proposes
| respondent of the Mormon Herald, who signs
himself Scientific" offers to go without butter
for tive weeks, ID order to contribute his
| share toward the fund. 1t will, therefore,
readily be seen how deeply Sister Bellies
| woes have stirred the heaIts Of this people.
1 have never heard of any proposal to
| raise a fund for the benefit of the woman
who was incarcerated in the lunstie asylum
| because she was found too weak to bear the
| cross of polygamy; nor, during all the years
of her %sojourn there, have l ever known ad-
miring friends to send out boxes and ham,
| pers of delicacies TO tempt an appetite that
| might be impaired by confinement; l am,
| therefore, forced to the conclusion that it lie
| only the Belle Harris type of martyr, whose
sorrows sppeal so strongly to the sympAthies
of the saints as to pen their purses as we'll
as their hearts.
As I write, / look out Upon the snow-cov-
cred peaks of the Wasstch, and recall what
| a dear friend of mine said of them years ago:
"They are
"THE WALLS OF MY PRISON nousE.n
God only knows how many women have
| echoed these words, OF what a prison this
valley, beautiful as it is, has proved to thou
| sands.
Another woman said to me: 81 don't think
| that Columbus, when he first caught sight of
land, was more rejoiced than l when / saw
| the fret train of cars coming into Salt Lake,
| for l thought, even if l could not escape that
way, the railroad would bring somebody in
| TO break our bonds"
1 knew an English lady, besutiful, accom-
| pitched, and delicately bred, who dragged a
| hand-cart from the Missouri river TO Salt
Lake, making the latter hail Of the journey
after the bitter winter of the Northern Terri
tories set in, fording streams, wading through
snow-driits, and kept alive almos by a mira
| Gle, while strong men dropped dead beside
| her. 1 have heard this lady, after accounting
| the horrors of that fearful winters march,
say: 81 would have dragged the same hand
carl back again the next year Tor the sake
of escaping from Utah, had escape been poe
.ible."
Possibly it is because the m who have