MORMON NOTIONS.
Notwithstanding the Mormons live so happily with their numerous wives, they seem to be rather suspicious of their fidelity. Col Steptoe having arrived at Salt Lake City, with a body of U. S. Troops, the people were commanded not to allow their families to associate with the officers.
The Mormons don't believe in equal rights for the sexes. Though a man may have any number of wives, it does not follow that a woman may have any number of hus-bands. Elder Pratt writes to the San Fran-cisco Leader to denounce such an assertion as a base slander ! Says the indignant El-der—
"And if allusion be made to the practical—the state of society and public morals in Utah—we hereby challenge the world to produce another State or Territory, so en-tirely free from all unlawful intercourse be-tween the sexes, and from every institution of an immoral tendency."
Where licentiousness is legalized, isn't it rather a joke to talk of the morality of the people! If thieving were permitted by law, there would not be a thief in the coun-try!
It seems, too, that some of the brethren don't like the system of wife monopoly practiced by the Elders—
This last summer many families have seceded from the church and gone into the States. There are hundreds who would fol-low them if they were able. The system of concubinage has become repulsive to many, who knew nothing of the "peculiar institu-tion" when they left their homes. As there is no limit to the President's wives, and as he is building a new and magnificent harem, no beautiful young woman is safe from his glances, so devoted is the Prophet Gover-nor to "raising up a pure and perfect gener-ation to the Lord."
