HIGHLY IMPORTANT FROM UTAH.
A TERRIBLE SOCIAL PICTURE.
PROGEESS OF CRIME AND OUTEAGE,
From Our Own Correspondent.
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 2, 1857.
Messrs. Gerrish and Morrell arrived here in the middle of last month, direct from the States; they had been a long time on the way and had endured many hardships and privations; they had been ex-posed to extreme cold, and narrowly escaped being overwhelmed and buried by the tremendous snow-storms that rage in the mountain passes; neverthe-less with, indomitable perseverance they overcame all obstacles and arrived safely in this city. They brought us the extremely welcome news that a United States Marshal had been appointed from among the Gentile residents of the Territory, and it is some consolation for us and the converted Mor-mons who have endured the most atrocious and hor-rible outrages that devilish minds and hands could devise and execute, to think that although we have been so long neglected the Government is doing some-thing to relieve us at last.
Shut in, as we are, from the world at large by the snows of Winter, and unprotected by even the show of a judiciary, the heads of the church have been enabled to perpetrate against us every species of crime and cruelty. Gentiles have been robbed of valuable property; dissenting Mormons, who have become disgusted with the fiendish rites of the ''Saints," have been outraged and murdered; and even women, who have presumed to rebel against the commands of the misnamed Church, have been mercilessly persecuted, and driven from house to house, until they were compelled to yield to the brutal demands of their tyrants or seek refuge from them in suicide. On Christmas night a young woman cut her throat, as the only way in which she could escape from the more terrible fate that plainly awaited her. Self-destruction by the less violent means of laudanum is very common. There is a class of young girls who, too timid to resort to extreme measures, are driven to become the concu-bines of the loathsome vipers who pretend to be the "Saints" of God. Their hopes and happiness are forever blasted, and the consciousness of their degradation is continually gnawing into their hearts. Of this the following is a melancholy instance. A man named Nash came to this Terri-tory last Fall, bringing with him his daughter, a lovely and beautiful girl of seventeen summers. He settled at Provo, a town sixty miles south of this city, and in consequence of her great beauty, his daughter was touch desired by many of the vile polygamists. She succeeded, however, in escaping them all until the death of her father, her only pro-tector, which happened in early Winter. The fune-ral rites were performed by Bishop Carter, who, after finishing his prayer over the newly-made grave, turned to the heart-broken maiden and roughly told her that she must now become his wife. The gentle girl, left friendless, and seeing no place wherein she could take refuge and escape a condition she so much dreaded, was obliged to yield, and is now doomed to a life of sorrow and dishonor. She is Carter's seventh victim. What an amount of blood and tears of agony will call for judgment against a powerful Government, which has knowingly per-mitted such villainy and outrage to continue four years unchecked within its jurisdiction.
One of the principal features of Mormonism is the constant endeavor of the rulers, to make the women there and The barriers of modesty and virtue are overthrown by them in all their discourses, and all refinement and elegance are studiously obliterated. They glory, as Heber C. Kimball says, "in calling things by "their right names." It was only a few Sundays ago that Kimball, in the presence of between two and three thousand people, delivered a discourse on the intercourse of the sexes, in which he made use of language too obscene and vulgar for the most de-graded to utter, literally calling things by their right names. Frequently, to further their villainous de-signs, they accuse women by name, in the "ward "meetings," of being prostitutes, thus making them lose all self-respect, and inducing them more easily, as they see there is no incentive to chastity, to yield to their importunities. A cer-tain Bishop in this city took a fancy to his neighbor's wife, a beautiful woman. Finding that she was too pure to consent to his suggestions, he deter-mined to effect his purposes by other means. He told her husband that his wife was unfaithful, and that he knew she had often been visited by other men while he (the husband) was absent; he added, that he would not have his ward defiled by the pres-ence of such a woman, and unless he turned his wife away his house would be pulled down over his head. The husband, influenced either by the slan-derous tale, or intimidated by the more powerful threat, discarded his wife, when the Bishop, imme-diately proposed to her to come into his family, which she indignantly refused, and took refuge in the house of an acquaintance. The Bishop, how-ever, was not to be foiled so easily. He compelled all the families who sheltered her to turn her away, until the poor woman in her anguish appealed to Brigham's sympathies, and begged him to protect her from her persecutor. But Brigham advised her to be "sealed" to the Bishop, and in utter despair she at length complied. The Bishop accomplished his purpose, but the connection was of short dura-tion, and Brigham was soon called upon to "unseal" the two.
Those who have left the Mormon church are the objects of frequent outrages, and whenever any of them are suspected of endeavoring to leave the Ter-ritory, they are immediately stripped of everything they possess. Mr. Jarvis, who has a store on South Temple street, was excommunicated last Fall on ac count of apostasy, and has been endeavoring to sell his property in order to leave for the States in the Spring. On the night of the 13th ult., some men entered the store of Mr. Jarvis and asked for to-bacco. Mr. J., in handing it to them, was seized by the hair, dragged into the street, and there most mercilessly beaten by some of the party, while others of the villains broke up the counters and shelves, built fires on the floor with the fragments, and threw the goods into them. They then repaired to the chambers, where they also built fires, burning the furniture and clothes of the family. Some fe-males who attempted to give the alarm were set upon with revolvers and knives, and frightened into silence. Having made a wreck of everything, the ruffians left, carrying away all the portable property. The fires which were smoldering on the floors were finally extinguished by the females, though they were much burnt as well as personally injured by the demons.
Mrs. Sutherland, a "Gentile" lady of great re-spectability, and widow of Mr. Sutherland who was killed on the plains with Col. Babbitt, had been driven from her home by threats of violence, and had fled to Mr. Jarvis's for safety. She was in the house at the time of the attack, but succeeded in making her escape therefrom; some of the gang saw her when in the street and gave chase. In turning a corner she fell in the deep snow, and feeling en-tirely exhausted did not attempt to rise; the man happily not seeing her passed on, and she sped in an-other direction, wandering through the streets all night, covered only with her night clothes, bare-footed and bareheaded, and afraid to ask for shelter—the snow being at the time over two feet in depth and the mercury below zero. It is almost need-less to say that Brigham was at the bottom of the affair, and that the Danites committed the deed by his direct orders. He had previously said in the Tabernacle that Jarvis should never leave the Terri-tory, or if he did he should not take one particle of property with him.
On the 12th of last month the house of a man was torn down because he had presumed to disobey or-ders and refused to turn away some Gentiles who were boarding with him. Attempts have been made to fire the dwellings of T. S. Williams, the Attorney, and Judge Stiles, the United States Judge, for the part they took in the Hockaday Tannery case. Both have been cut off from the Church, and denounced as apostates, for daring to do their duty and trying to enforce the laws of the country. It was the anxious wish of the Mormons to destroy the records of this case that induced them to burn the books and papers of the United States Circuit Court. The United States officials, Gen. Burr, the Surveyor-General, and Dr. Hart, the Indian Agent, are now in a very dangerous position. Open throats of burning or tearing down their offices and killing or maltreating them are daily made, and in one of the southern settlements at a Sunday meeting it was voted to raise a party to come and cut their throats. Unless the Government sends a military force here immediately, it will be impossible for any officers to remain through the Summer, and it is constantly said, in the streets and in the meetings, that all the Gentiles must leave in the Spring. At Social Hall, a few evenings since, the speakers, Messrs. Wheelock and Clinton, declared that it was the intention and purpose of the Church to drive out the Gentiles in forty days.
The contract for carrying the overland mail has been bought by Brigham from Hiram Kimball, the original contractor, but will be run in Kimball's name. So the Government, although it appoints a Gentile Postmaster to protect the mail from depre-dations, in trusts it to Brigham's emissaries to carry a distance of 1,200 miles, on any one mile of which they can find a spot where, completely hid from mor-tal eye, they can destroy and suppress such letters as they please. The fact of their opening letters is too well known to dispute, and it is openly avowed. The Territorial Marshal, Mr. McKay, the Clerk of the Court, Mr. Cummings, and the District-Attor-ney, Hosea Stout, all members of the Danite Band, called not long since on the Surveyor-General and told him that they had a copy of a letter written by him to the Department of the Interior at Washing-ton, and moreover that he could not send letters, from Utah without their first seeing the contents.
An immense quantity of snow has fallen this Win-ter, promising abundant water the coming Summer. A mill was destroyed by an avalanche of snow in Big Cottonwood Canon, and many roofs have been crushed by its weight. There has been a great deal of suffering among the hand-cart recruits, and they continue to die daily. Not one-half of those that left the States are now alive.
[By Telegraph.]
LATER FROM UTAH—ALL QUIET—BRIGHAM YOUNG AT SALT LAKE CITY.
ST. Louis, Monday, May 18, 1857.
The overland Utah mail has arrived here with Salt Lake City dates of the 2d of APM. The Territory was quiet.
Preparations were making to send a large number of missionaries to all parts of the world.
The accounts of the movements of Brigham Young do not accord with those received via California. He seemed to possess the entire confidence of the people, and was planning a pleasure excursion to the Mormon settlement at Salmon River.
For some unknown cause, the Mormons at San Ber-nardino and the surrounding settlements have been summoned to Salt Lake City.
The Cheyennes were becoming bold and defiant. A trader arrived from Fort Laramie reported that; the Indians acknowledged a loss of sixty warriors sent to commit depredations on the California road, in conse-quence of which they have made prisoners of sixteen traders, and have sent one hundred warriors to the road to avenge the loss.
