Is Utah an English Colony?
[For The Press.]
The recent arrival, at New York, of a large cargo of Mormons from Liverpool recalls to mind a fact to which we have several times, during the last five years or so, drawn the at-tention of the public and the Government, That fact is, that Utah, nominally a Territory of the United States, is, in reality, much more an English colony. Worse than that it is an English colony within the demesne of the United States, having not the slightest fra-ternal feeling with the States—the majority of the Mormons not being citizens of the United States, and without any desire to be-come citizens. The Mormon immigrants come to Utah, not to the United States. If Utah were in Timbuctoo they would go where Utah was, in the belief that there, for the present, the gates of the Mormon paradise are opened unto them.
The foreign Mormons (by far the greater number of the population) are the off-scour-ings of the worst localities abroad. Those from Scandinavia may be more fanatical than anything else; but it is an ascertained fact, supported by the reports and statistics in the English papers, that the Mormons from that country are of the very lowest description of the human race, devoid of moral or mental dignity, and only following that which panders to or satiates dispositions and desires emana-ting from almost incredible ignorance and bestiality. They are chiefly enlisted in the manufacturing towns where morals are of a marvellously loose lend, promiscuous inter-course being so common as not to lead to any violence on the part of the men, or shame on the part of the women, and where it is not at all unusual to sell one's wife at the market-place, or exchange wives, throwing in some "boot," without the formalities of a sale by auction of one's “flesh and bone."
Readers who remember the celebrated Devon Commission and the Report made to the British Parliament by it, cannot forget the disgusting and unchristian details there made of the barbaric state in which the English factory hands and workers in the coal pits lived, moved, and had a being. In one or two of DISRAELI'S novels, in DICKENS', and more recently MAYHEW'S and ELIZA COOK'S writings, and the reviews upon the Devon Commissioners' Report, the state of these wretched people was somewhat exposed. We say somewhat, because these writers always warn the reader against doubting as fiction the facts given, and excuse their want of power to give a full idea of the horrors of that under-world of England. DISRAELI, indeed, goes further. In one of his prefaces, writing from his own observations, he says he found it an absolute necessity to suppress much that was genuine, fearful lest the air of improba-bility which the whole truth would inevitably throw over his pages might deter people from their perusal.
It is from the people, of whose awfully de-moralized state such men write, that the Mor-mon emigration from England is made up. They have no political ideas whatsoever. They know that "all is a muddle," but of God above, or anything beneath, they are equally ignorant. They work harder, are worse fed, and have none of the amusements of the negro slave. The Mormon missionaries play into their worst and most licentious appetites, and easily excite localities with the disgusting tenets of JOSEPHUS SMITH, which are nothing else than the old habits of these people digni-fied, or, rather, ranted into the worn de plume of a religion.
The Utah matter is not settled ; nor will it ever be settled while the Mormon ranks are being filled up, from time to time, by droves of people who have no sympathy with the Government of the United States, who do not, most likely, know what citizenship of a country means, and who, if they did, would not become citizens, as they should swear to the Constitution, and consequently should help to check, the audacity of BRIGHAM YOUNG, whom they came especially to obey and serve as their prophet, and their chief.
The last instalment—the seven hundred and twenty-five—which landed at Castle Garden, New York, on the 13th ultimo, appear to be of a much more decent description than the class to which we have been alluding, and which have formed the chief foreign element of Mormonism. It includes thirty-six farmers, and a great variety of mechanics. Of the nationalities we have—
English………..233 Welsh...................30
Danish……......224 Norwegians……10
Swedish..........108 Irish…………………7
Scotch............... 31 Welsh………………4
We may expect another cargo soon, as it is stated that this one is composed of persons waiting the settlement of the difficulties in Utah. Great numbers would have crossed the Atlantic this year if intelligence of the "peace"—such as it is—had reached Europe earlier. To take the journey much later than now would subject the parties to great hard-ships on the plains.
In the statistics of Mormonism the Scandi-navians show a large comparative increase. In previous cargoes the British islanders were very largely in the majority. For instance :
In five months (from November, 1854, to April, 1855,) 3,626 Mormons were landed at the three ports of New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York. Of this number there were 2 919 from Great Britain, and 28 from Ire-land, thus:
English………….….2,231 Norwegians………....53
Scotch……………..…..401 Irish………………….…23
Welsh……………….....287 Swiss…………………..15
Danes………………….409 Piedmontese……….15
French………………….75 Germans…………..…13
Swedes…………….......71 Prussian……………....1
The British have here very largely the as-cendant, having near six-sevenths of this large emigration.
The persistent chase by an Englishman af-ter his family, which had been seduced away by the Mormons and put on board the Enoch Train in the spring of '56, brought the interior of that vessel to public eye. There were nine hundred Mormons on board, chiefly from the manufacturing towns, Birmingham alone contributing three hundred.
Of two hundred and fifty converted by El-der WILLIAMS and brought to this country in the fall of the same year, in the ship Colum-bia, nearly the entire were from the neighbor-hood of Bristol. In April, 1857, the George Washington arrived at Boston with eight hundred and fifty Mormons, the great majority from England.
It is likely that the comparative increase of Scandinavians in the Mormon statistics may be only an apparent one, as it is very reason-able to suppose that those who arrived by the Tapscott on the 13th ultimo was an accamul-ation which had gathered at Liverpool waiting for news from Utah. Having travelled so far already, they naturally would be the first shipped by the Mormon authorities at Liver-pool for this country, leaving the chief body, said to be very large, of English converts, to follow them. The Scandinavians were, already in a state of transitu, while the English, it is to be supposed, could more readily be em-ployed until arrangements were perfected for shipping to President BRIGHAM.
It is difficult to prognosticate anything as to the future of Utah. Only one thing seems inevitable, and that is a collision with the United States authorities. It is sheer non-sense to say that our difficulties are at end. They are only postponed.
