The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-07
NEWS OF GENERAL CITY
PREPARING FOR ENCANPMEET
 OF THE SECOND.
Shower Baths Win Be Provided For the soldiers Colonel ouarles Has Made No Announcement
 of His Candidacy.
Advertiser Bureau.

or 61S Vanoaoecy.
 Advertiser Bureau.
 Selma, June 6.
 This morning Superintendent Hall of the Street and Suburban Railway, and John c. Norris, his consulting surveyor. accompanied by the representative of The Advertiser, went to Elkdale. Mir. Norris went to select the best site for the location of the mess halls that are to be put up for the approaching encampment of the 2nd Regiment. There will be two mess halls erected. each one hundred and twenty feet long. Tables will be run from one end of these halls to the other, and practically the entire regiment can sit down to dine at the. same time. A large kitchen will also be built. also a room for locking up the provisions, and everything will be made as comfortable as possible for Athe soldiers Yhen they pitch tent for their week S drill in the Central City of Alabama. The Selma Street Railway never does things by halves and Superintendent Halls idea is to have everything arranged % we'll that the 2nd Regiment will come to this city every year, whether any bonus Is subscribed by the merchants or not.
 The drill ground, just outside the park. VIII Uo uOWH anu tuOfOu8uAy IVttons att0 all of the leaves and trash under the trees where the tents are to be pitched will be scraped up and either burned or carted away. It has been suggested that the trunks of the trees be whitewashed as high as a man can reach, which would present a very beautiful appear ance either by daylight or by the cleo tric lights that will be suspended from the limbs of the trees over the tents
 Superintendent Hall also proposes to erect high stockade and put in num- Der of shower baths. under the dense shade trees, few yards back of the row of tents. MT. Hall says that he would put in 8 few bath tubs also, but the ex- pense will be a little too much, and be- sides. he thinks that the men will be satisfied with the shower baths as water. plenty of it. fresh and pure. Is all that soldier requires. There may not be any roof over the stockade that Is built around the shower baths but the dense shade of the trees will protect the sol diers from the rays of the sun. It Is something unusual for the soldiers to be furnished with shower baths while they are in camp The great problem has always been to get enough water for them to drink, but when they come to Selma this time they will have water in abundance for any purpose that they may desire. except for swimming. and the Alabama River is not over a mile away if they care to take 9 dive into it's not over clear waters.
 Sessions Continued.
 The Mormon Elders Convention of Alabama did not adjourn last night as was expected but continued its sessions today, though elders left on every train !, ant ct,t nf the fttx, and there will be only a few of them to remain over in the city until tomorrow. The article in this mornings Advertiser, giving the names of the places in Alabama in which they have churches, was generally com mented upon. and the church of the Lat ter Day Saints is a great deal stronger in Alabama than was generally sup posed One of the elders called the at tention of your correspondent to an error that crept into the columns about the number of converts that have been made in the city of Selma. He said that the number of elders who were coming here to the conference. twenty-four, was con fused with the number that had been converted in this city. The elder said that no converts had yet been made in this city, but there were number seeking after the truth" he continued. Tt is true that there are three or four Nor mon families in Selma. but they have drifted in here from the far West, where they were either born Mormons or were converted to the faith out there. where the church is so strong.
 One pecuiarity about these Mormon missionaries is, that they all look alike and have the same peculiarly solemn, sedate, thoughtful expressions on their faces Their faces might he said to be stoical They walk about the streets nearly always in pairs. and white boys and little negroes can be seen to punch cath other and remark as they pass by. That's them"
 Last night Elder Rich of Chattanooga delivered a lecture on the kelief of the Mormons to a fair sized crowd in the Dragons Armory. Several scores of men were drawn there by curiosity, one man taking his wife with him. Elder Rich is man of very ordinary appear ance. as are nearly all of the elders. but there is no disguising the fact that ne is very smart man. He explained the doctrines that the Mormons believe in most adrot manner and said that the church had ceased to practice polysamy since the Congress of the United States had passed a law against it. He said that those who had a plurality of wives at the time that the law was passed stuck to them for they did not want to make scarlet women of them or stamp their offspring as bastards. hence they claimed them as their legitimate wives and their offsprings as the children of legal marriages
 When Mir. Eph Garrett saw the state- ment In The Advertiser this morning as to church organization at Mt. Willing. in Lowndes county, he said 1t must be A mistake. They did have a church there at one time, Mir. Garrett informed your but it had been broken up Mir. Garrett says that a year or two ago he went to this church at Mt. Willing and challenged the elder to joint de- bate, but instead of meeting him he took to the woods. MT. Garrett says he spoke to tremendous crowds for a whole week. morning and evening, with the result that the Mormon church at that place went to pieces and the people who had joined it, being misled by the sophistry of the Mormon elders. returned to the origi- nal churches to which they belonged. ashamed of the fact that they had gone off after false goods and penitent for the sin that they had committed. Elder Rich, who seems to be the lead Ing spirit of the assemblage. after he had delivered his sermon last night. | boarded the midnight train for Birming- ham and went from there to Chatta- nooga. Before he left however, he as- signed the elders to the fields in which | they are expected to do missionary work | for the ensuing year.
 Colonel QuarlesIs Candidacy,