[BY PONY EXPRESS]
LETTER FROM SALT LAKE.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY,
March 9th, 1861.
There seeing something amounting to a per-nicious fatality overhanging the Courts of Utah. No sooner has one difficulty been got through with, than another pops up, We have had squab-bling over the Probate Court and its jurisdic-tion for years, and to-day we are as near a cor-rect understanding of the real authority of that Court as the folks were who lived here before as ten years ago, and not a whit nearer. We have had Judges squaring things up, according to acquired notions in one State in the East, and we'll have had another follow after him with other notions, acquired in another State in the West. Now we have Cradlebaugh and Flenniken con-tending for the high position of Judge in the Second Judicial District of the Territory.
The District and Probate Judges were strang-ers to each other; probably knew little more than that they were each mortal, and of the great family of Noah. The Judge from the East was a stranger to the Judge from the West. The one only knew that be was successor to the other. Flenniken and Cradlebaugh never met till they made their formal bow to each other last October. Probates and Federals, Easterns and Westerns, predecessors and successors may all have been gentlemen and men of sense—at least, they should have been that much—and in ordinary matters would pass for intelligent men, and in good society would likely pass for gentle-men. Free from the weight of the ermine, they could live together "like brothers," and, by-the-by, wish each other everlasting happiness over the flowing bowl, and that, as the Mormons say, they could all do magnificently— but that may be slander. N'importe, they have been merry oft times and with friend and friend; but the mo-ment they leave the private and come to the offi-cial, they manifest a large development of the disposition to "get on to each other."
Cradlebaugh tries, condemns and sentences Fitzgerald, in Carson. The culprit's days get numbered, and but for friends who hastily send to Associates Kinney and Crosby, Fitzgerald would have, long ere this, ranked high with Ha-man, of 'Jew-hating celebrity. "Fitz" gets legally released from the jaws of death for a time, and Cradlebaugh gets informed that his Court was illegal. The gallant Cradlebaugh sends back compliments, and tells his brethren of the ermine that he knows a thing or two, and they may whistle, Fitz's friends, should he have any, might look to this, for between the Judges, be he deserving of hanging or otherwise, they are sure to hang him. They'll pull at each other till his head slips through the noose.
Our Judges knock into "pi" all that Cradle-baugh has done in Carsen and just as Flenni-ken begins to shake his sides, adjust his stand-up, and complacently bow to the sweet conclu-sions of dame Fortune, the next Pony takes him the pronounced opinion of his brethren here that he is no Judge of Utah Territory: that Cradlebaugh, though holding illegal Courts, was the third Judge in Utah, and as the Organic Act only provides for three Judges, the President of the United States could not remove the one or the other, and as neither had volunteered to vacate the ranch, it was a slight mistake, and he (Flenniken) was one Judge too many. Cradlebaugh's Courts are illegal, and Flenni-ken's appointment is illegal, so the people of Carson have an admirable choice between Courts. If they carry matters before Cradle-baugh, the discontented will plead the illegality of the Court; if they carry matters before Flenniken, the discontented will plead the ille-gality of the appointment.
THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT C0URT.
For United States business, the Supreme Court appointed holding Courts at Provo, on the fourth Monday of March, in the First Dis-trict, and at Great Salt Lake City, on the second Monday of April, is the Third District. As the law required, the Judges ordered summonses to be issued for grand and petit jurors, and know-ing the prejudice against laboring for nothing, the Deputy Marshal was particularly charged to inform the jurors that $2 per diem, "in hard cash," awaited the faithful performance of "sit-ting out" their time. There are big bills against the United States for past neglect, and these are times in which nobody cares about adding to the list. The Deputy Marshal had hardly got back from Provo, where he had made such fair promises, before he learned that during his absence the Marshal in Carson had drawn the last dollar placed to his credit for United States business. The draft had come by Pony, had been honored, and now I am authorized to state that the Judges will not attempt to hold Courts on credit. They say they will not do it. The Second District Court (Carson county,) is not appointed to be held for United States business till the second Monday of August. Perhaps Marshal Grice has some "conscientious scruples," and apprehends that we might secede. It is certainly commend-able to be prudent; but the Judges here, Dep-uty Marshal, jurors and other officials think that the dollars would be quite as safe here as at Carson, and for certain, so they say, the dol-lars don't come back, or some others come in their place; no Court will be held, and the tru-ant Marshal and the dollars, both of them, will be reported to "honest Abe." ' Tis a fact, they won't stand it.
ANOTHER SALE OF UNITED STATES PROPERTY.—
"Coming events cast their shadows before." On Wednesday week, Uncle Sam mounts the chair at Fort Crittenden, with gavel in hand, to knock down to the highest bidder the first in-stallment of things not wanted, and the com-mencement of the great clearance prefatory to bidding Brigham a final adieu. The Mountain-eer received yesterday the following advertise-ment, with orders to spread out, to place in the prominent part of the paper—all of which they have not failed to attend to in the Barnum style:
AUCTION SALE OF HORSE AND MULE SHOES—Will be sold at Fort Crittenden, Utah Territory, on Wednesday, the 20th instant, at ten o'clock A.M., ten thousand mule shoes and ten thousand horse shoes, from the manufactory of Messrs. Burden & Sons, Troy, New York. Also, a large amount of con-demned stores, consisting in part of the following articles: Axes, spades, hay and stable forks, military equipments, water kegs, wagon and ox bows, ox yokes, straw cutters, camp equipments, gunny bogs, saddle blankets, riding, pack and wagon saddles, blacksmith's, carpenter's, wheelwright's and saddler's tools, grind-stones, rope, jackscrews, etc., etc. Terms cash.
R E. CLARY, A. Q. M.
Fort Crittenden, U.T, March 5,1861.
The Mormons will buy, no doubt of it, and Ben. Holliday absent, will doubtless come in for a lively share of cheap fixings; and numberless like sermons will be afterward preached about the unscrutable ways of Providence in bringing an army to their mountain home, to furnish them the needfuls. Who can blame the simple folks? Some day we will have to report the final departure from the fort of all who can travel, and by another demonstration Israel will be in possession of tens of thousands of dollars worth of the very property they wanted. It is hard, very hard, to conceal the fact that the Utah war was a heavy plundering move; and once the plunder gathered, there is not a soul with courage enough to offer anything like a whitewash excuse for the rascality. I sympathize with the officers at camp—they feel humiliated. They are taunted and sneered at, not individually, but as the machines of a despot. "They had come to fight against Israel; but the Lord put a hook in their jaws, and held them at Bridger, shivering in the snow, then marched them to Camp Floyd, then marched them away again." That's brief history.
Many of the officers are anxiously awaiting the inaugural of Mr. Lincoln, and if war is foreshadowed, they at once resign commissions. We have had several of them in the city for a few days, taking their first and last glimpse at the Zion of the Prophets.
TEMPLE, HALL OF SCIENCE AND THEATRE.
The Mormons have something like a tradition among them, which, freed from the extras, means that Auld Clootie—le Diable—Prince of Darkness, or whatever taste, horror or imagina-tion choose to call the filibuster of the nether worlds, has a terrible dislike to temple building. Whether the prophet has calculated the costs or not, I can't say; but, whether or no, the temple is to go on vigorously, and, according to tradition, we are some time or other, at no late date, to have a brush with somebody. Who the enemy is to be is not yet determined. It may be the gold hunters—not unlikely; but it would seem hardly credible that, while everything in-dicates an active clearing out of United States troops, it is a common talk in the city that a big army is coming out here this year. In a recent discourse of Heber, published in the News, be says that "this people” are the quickest to believe any thing that he ever knew. They certainly were then measured. They are not verdantly quick in faith; that's not the idea. They have got hardened in troubles, and they have had such a dose of them that they conscientiously believe that the gentleman named in the beginning of this paragraph has nothing else to do but concoct and superintend the carrying out of every kind of spite against them; and at every game they can match him—so that they can believe anything, however seem-ingly absurd, and yet dread nothing. They'll speak of a hostile army coming up against them with all the complacency in the world, and I am wicked enough to believe that very many of them would hail with pleasure the approach of another 2,500. They believe themselves invin-cible—and in the trial, some see gold, lots of it, and the others see miracles, lots of them; so both parties get satiated.
In addition to the Temple, the Seventies have determined on building a magnificent Hall of of Science, and the community collectively are to commence immediately on subscriptions for the theater. That I mentioned in a previous letter. I believe the City Council have determined on a new City Hall on a grandiose style. Brigham has gone bridge building; he built one during the Winter over Jordan, and that finished, he has commenced another over the Weber. Following his example, the men of faith will add greatly to business the present Summer by erecting larger houses— families grow here.
JUST RETRIBUTION.—On the first of this month, an exhibition of the summary process of law was made manifest by the stringing up of three desperadoes. Charles Bacon, Bill Smith and French Pete were arraigned be-fore a Court composed of the employees of the Mail stations west and east of the Rocky Ridge. From our Reporter we learn that on or about the 25th of Feb-ruary, the parties above mentioned induced a person named Bartholomew, (formerly a resident of Omaha,) to make a visit to Baton's ranch, at the Three Crossings of the Sweetwater that when in the house of Bacon the said Bar-tholomew was shot by Bacon, Smith and Pete. Pete made his escape good, but subsequently returned. On the return of Pete the employees of the Mail line east and wests of the station concentrated their forces and brought the parties to trial before a Court of their own formation. The evidence being conclusive, a verdict of hanging was the result and the three gentlemen were swung accordingly.
While we cannot indorse as a general sentiment the idea of outside tribunals and such summary justice, we cannot say otherwise than that in such a case merit was fairly dealt out. We knew none of the parties; but from what we can learn Bacon had been for years a notorious vagabond. He has been, we learn, the pro-prietor of a ranch at the Three Crossings of Sweetwater. About two years since two Germans went to his house at that place, and were never afterwards seen. Subse-quently (a few days afterward,) Bacon was seen with their horses. He is supposed to have been an inveterate desperado not unknown to these regions.—Mountain-eer, 9th.
19th Century Mormon Article Newspaper Index
