APFAIRS IN UTAH,
The Completion of the Pacific Telegraph—The Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Trouble—The Mormon Expedition to the Rio Virgin, &c.
Correspondence of the New-York Times.
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, Thursday, Oct. 17,1861.
To-day it is expected the telegraph connection will be complete between this city and the States, and that the first message will be sent hence by the wires. They were first put up in this city last Friday, though all the gaps were not filled up till to-day. There has been quite a rivalry between the men on the east and those on the west part of the route, but it appears that the east is first.
The wires from the East terminate here in a store recently occupied by Messrs. HOOPER, ELDRIDGE & Co.; those from the West terminate, for the present, at the store of LIVINGSTON, BELL & Co. Thus this great work of uniting the two oceans, for the purposes of intelligence, is almost an accomplished fact. If the Indians, the mountain storms and the "seceshers" do not misbehave, the probability is that we shall hence-forth have daily instantaneous news from our neigh-bors below the mountains.
As I write, a small train, probably WRIGHT'S goods train, is on the bench, slowly approaching the city from the East.
The past week or two has been a time of considera-ble excitement here in the mountains. Mr. MARTIN, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, has apparently run against a snag that won't give way at all. So the Superintendent has backed down with the best grace possible under the circumstances. It seems that Mr. MARTIN has officially sent statements to Washington to the effect that the Mormons are seceding on their own hook, and won't have anything to do more with the National Union, and are declaring vengeance on Government trains which may be caught in this Ter-ritory hereafter, and several other things of that sort, whereat the Mormons have taken umbrage and insist on their own patriotism. Moreover, three or four of them, it seems, have called on the Superintendent, and represented their view of matters so strongly to him, that after a great deal of unwillingness he has consented to a public acknowledgment that he told the Government a little more or less than he now considers strictly warranted by the facts in the case; all which, of course, will count something to the score of the Mormons, and if nothing more, will re-mind the agent of the favorite text of DAVID CROCKETT.
Government officials coming here will, sooner or later, find it to their interest to ignore outside pres-sure, either for or against the Mormons, and make up their own judgment carefully and cautiously from their own observation and experience, as far as pos-sible, before submitting grave statements to the De-partment at Washington. Public retraction of a hasty or ill-considered statement is honorable, but the transaction altogether does not demonstrate the exist ence of that amount of tact which is indispensable to the successful discharge of public duties among a sus-picious and susceptible community like this. I take it for granted that it is better to live at peace than a war, even with the Mormons, if the former state of things can be honorably secured, and especially at the present time. At all avents, a needless stirring up of strife may well be avoided by Government officers as it scarcely comes within the range of their duties and will hardly prove an acceptable service in a day of fiery trial like that which the nation is now passing through. Relying too much on the statements and views of others is a piece of imprudence which Na-tional officers would do well to avoid committing. These remarks are based on the acknowledgment the Superintendent has made, as I am told, of the incor-rectness of a late official communication to Washing- ton by him. All Mormondom is excited over the expedition which is now getting up to the desolate banks of the brackish Rio Virgin, for the purpose of raising cotton and other semi-tropical productions. Manufacturing Europe is looking out for new cotton-fields, and why may not manufacturing Mormondom? as one of the preachers said on Sunday. Accordingly, some two hundred families were then and there called upon for this purpose. Apostles ORSON PRATT and ERASTUS SNOW were among the number. There are no fertile prairies or luxuriant savannas on the Rio Virgin, but arid sand-plains, which will require most copious irri-gation by the mineral waters of that river of the desert, before the cotton, the grape or the fig gladdens the sight of the industrious tiller of the sand. The country in that region has a bad name. "A score of oxen would eat up the whole country," is the talk, and assuredly the "brethren" who are "called," exhibit wry faces enough to indicate that they have been living some time on crab-apples or unripe persimmons. A "call" is a great thing with a Mormon, but there are scores of them who would travel this mundane sphere twice over to "preach the Gospel," while you will scarcely find one willing—cheerfully willing—to settle on the God-forsaken Sahara of the Rio Virgin. But as the far-seeing religio-politico-economic BRIGHAM desires it, the "brethren" will go to the desert with religious resignation, and try, by dint of faith, and digging, and hoeing, and much irrigation, to raise their bread, and dinner, and clothes, from the burning Peaches have fallen to $1 per bushel, or half a bushel of wheat for a bushel of peaches. But their reign this season is nearly over.
