HE SAVED HER FROM THE MORMONS.
A Kind-Hearted Irishman Rescues a Young English Girl Who Had Been Enticed Away from Her Home in the Old Country by Mormon Elders.
NEW YORK, NOV. 12.—A bright-eyed, brown-haired English country girl of about twenty years, was a shy and interesting member of the colony of 148 Mormon converts that board-ed the steamer Arizona at Liverpool when she started for New York. The girl's pensive man-ner and apparent fear of the ruddy elders, who traveled in the best style in the first cabin, was remarked by several of the cabin passen-gers. Among others, J. R. Gildea, a deputy sheriff of New Haven, who was returning from a visit to Ireland, was struck by the girl's singular manner, and, finding her one afternoon in a melancholy mood in a quiet part of the ship, he deter-mined to ascertain the cause of her apparent aversion to the elders. He says he was amazed to find she had been duped into the journey to Utah.
"I am Levine Cook," she said to him, "and I was led by curiosity to attend the Mormon missionary meetings. An elder said he knew my mother in America, and that she had told him that she wanted me to come out and join her. Then he showed me a letter that he said had been written by her to him, and let me read that part of the paper in which something was written about bringing the 'daughter' back with him. The Mormons told us that we young women folks would all get married to good husbands, and be sure of a happy and prosper-ous life when we got out to Utah. He said it was a fertile country, with a religious govern-ment and everything was nice and homelike. I believed what he said, and when the ship sailed I was one of the several score of women who made up the company that went on board. I don't believe it's true at all now."
"Don't you want to go to Utah, then?" Mr. Gildea asked.
"Oh, no," said the girl, "but I can't help my-self now." "Well, you sha'n't go if you don't want to," said Mr. Gildea. "I'll stop it."
"Don't tell the elders, though," the emigrant said: "they'd keep me down there in the steerage all the time." Mr. Gildea says that he watched the elders after the interview before acting. There were half a, dozen of them on board and they lived like nabobs. They drank champagne constantly in the cabin and played cards for money with anybody who would join in. Mr. Gildea says that he and other passengers saw them go among the young women in their com-pany and display photographs of good-looking Mormons to them, telling them that the origi-nals would marry them as soon as they got to Utah.
Mr. Gildea spoke to a dozen Americans and Irishmen about Miss Cook, and said he had resolved to rescue the girl from the elders. The other passengers acquiesced in the scheme, and yesterday morning they went in a group to the elders, who were standing near the steerage, and demanded that the girl be allowed to follow her own wish, and be re-leased from any agreement she might have made.
"You mind your own business," said one of the elders. "The girl is one of our party."
One of the passengers pushed forward, grabbed Miss Cook, and drew her away. In-stantly there was a tussle, and one of the elders was knocked flat on the deck. The angry Irishmen in the melee shouted impreca-tions at the elders, and threatened to lay them all out if they touched the girl again. The Mormons finally drew back and let a Brooklyn man lead the girl to a cabin. Miss Cook had about $50 in English money.
Mr. Gildea didn't land at the Barge office yesterday afternoon when the cabin passengers were transferred from the Arizona. He stayed on board till the steamer reached Pier 38, where the steerage passengers were trans-ferred. At the pier he called a policeman, and told him to guard the girl so that the elders couldn't get a chance to talk to her again. The policeman promised to care for her, and when Mr. Gildea started toward the City Hall the young girl was sitting on her luggage box in a corner of the pier counting her money over. She said she didn't know what she was go-ing to do in America, or how long she would stay.
