THE MORMONS AT HOME.
A Look at the Inhabitants of Utah-How They Live and Their Struggle with Poverty—Decline of Polygamy.
[CORRESPONDENCE OF THE WORLD.]
SALT LAKE CITY, October 25.
No people in the United States are so little under-stood by readers in the East as the Mormons. They are supposed to be living in one of the most fertile valleys of the West, in a state of ease and luxury, making it a mere pastime to defy the United States government. All this is incorrect.
THE SOIL OF UTAH.
The soil of Utah is in most places hard and stony, full of alkali spots, which defy all attempts to make them fertile. There is no timber, save far up in the mountain canons, from whence it can only be procured and manufactured at enormous expense. In summer it is parched with heat, so that nothing grows naturally on it but the homely sage bush, and the no less homely and offensive salt weed.
The labor of cultivating this land is very great. Procuring water from the few mountain streams is, in most places, a work of much difficulty and great expense. Every plant—in fact, every root—must have its supply and no more. Too much is quite as fatal as none at all. The soil is so full of stones, large and small, that it is cultivated with great diffi-culty. There is no material for budding save the stone and adobes. The latter in this climate do not last well. After all this toil is expended, and the crop almost ready to be harvested, the grasshopper, against which all skill so far has been unavailing, may destroy it in a few hours. It is true that you will be told that to be compelled to irrigate land is an advantage, and that enough more can be raised to the acre to pay for all this extra labor. After going over many fields and talking with many farmers, I am satisfied that this is all a mistake. The most of the farms of Utah do not contain more than twenty acres. On this patch of ground the Mormon farmer, with all his children and perhaps a few wives, will work incessantly. The industry of this people is proverbial. The nature of the country in which they live, the large families which they rear, and their original poverty, all make it a necessity, while their religion makes it a virtue. It is a constant boast among them that, “Among us you will find no lazy people." Over the Church Tithing-house, in Salt Lake City, in large letters, you may read, “No room for loafers," while at the residence of the President you may see a large bee-hive, indicative of the industry constantly main-tained within.
EDUCATION.
There are no free schools in Utah, and very few of the Mormons can afford to send their children to the few schools that are to be round in the Territory. Children that in other States and Territories you would find at school, or at play, are here at work, and kept at work constantly.
POVERTY.
The president and elders of the church most as-siduously cultivate this industry in the people by argument in their sermons, by devices to make it profitable, and by example in their own everyday life. Yet, with all this effort, and a frugality naturally attendant upon it, the great body of the Mormons are very poor. I do not include now the elders or the merchants. They are generally rich. Tithes and absolute power over the property of the church may account for the one, while monopolizing the trade with emigrants, at prices that have been little less than robbery, account for the accumulations of the other. Now, with all this industry, and with the prices the Mormons have always extorted, nothing but the great expense of producing could have kept them poor. The tithes of the church alone could not have had this effect. A whole family of from five to fif-teen persons will live upon and work the farm of ten or twenty acres. It will take their entire time. With a good crop, they will have enough for the family and a little to sell to purchase clothing, after the tithes are paid. Should the grasshoppers come, a want that closely approaches starvation follows.
MORMON HOUSES.
Their houses are in keeping with their poverty. Generally they are built of adobes or stone, while some are of logs; most of them have not more than two rooms, while many of them have but one. Out-side of the towns and villages it is a rare exception to see a house of more than one story. Many of the houses in the northern part of the val-ley are covered with dirt, and it is not uncommon to see one with no floor but the ground. The furni-ture is confined to the commonest articles, such as chairs, tables, and a bedstead, and these are gene-rally made by the owner, and of very rough material. When you find the occupants from England the in-terior is generally scrupulously clean, but as much cannot be said for other occupants. The greater number of the farmers are foreigners, very ignorant and correspondingly conceited. Men who were liv-ing with a large family in a single room, who had been toiling for years to keep want from the door, and who were living as only the very poorest live in the States, would frequently say to me, “The poor man has some chance here; you see none of that squalid poverty here you see so frequently elsewhere. Every one here can get enough to eat." The idea that they are well off is studiously culti-vated in the sermons they hear and the few papers they read. They believe, both women and men, that in the States their condition would become in-comparably worse. The “Sisters in Plurality" are constantly told by the returning missionaries of women in the States who have to pull the plough with beasts of the field, and who are without clothes to cover themselves and their children. Labor fills all the hours of the week-day not required for rest, and on Sunday the elder gives to these ignorant people such misinformation as the above. Few of them can afford to or are inclined to read any papers. If they do it is some Mormon paper, published by a Mormon elder.
POLYGAMY NOT GENERAL.
Polygamy is not general among the Mormons. I do not think, after much inquiry, that more than one in fifteen of the Mormon men, who are married, have more than one wife. Perhaps half of them secretly condemn polygamy, though to any “Gentile" they will argue in its favor. The two sons of the prophet Joseph Smith are preaching against polygamy, and are making many converts throughout the Territory. They are vigorous, intellectual men, and make all their converts ardent admirers of themselves. The Mormons are an earnest people. Their church has been built by persecution, and untold privations and hardships have made their leaders fearless. The story of their persecutions is recited weekly at the Tabernacle and in almost every church in the Terri-tory. The leaders of 1847 and 1848 are seated behind the altars, and their gray hairs everywhere command the respect due to he-roes. The young are called upon to emulate their example, and often seem sorry that they had not lived in those days, so they, too, could have endured suffering for the church. Persecution will find the Mormon people to-day as ready to suffer martyrdom, if there is any opportunity, as any of the people of history have heretofore been.
These people, from their origin and habits of life, are entirely matter of fact, cold and stolid in their feelings and manners. There is no conception of the ludicrous, no appreciation of humor, and that droll comprehensiveness of expression so prevalent elsewhere in the West is not to be found among the saints. The women are disgusted with the doctrine of plurality of wives, and polygamy must be surren-dered by the church or the church must go down with polygamy. But one thing can save it, and that is an attempt by force to abolish it, which may drive the Mormons from Utah, but which will perpetuate for a few more decades an institution that must die so soon as it is approached by civilization. C.
