THE MORMON MUTINY.
Rapid Development of the Territory—The Agencies at Work Upsetting Brig-ham—A Mormon Girl Attacks the Priests—She Ex-poses a Brutal As-sault Upon a Gentile.
Satirical Papers at Work For and Against the Church,
&c., &c., &c.,
SALT LAKE CITY, December 6.—A year ago this city was ''as dull as a New England village;" it is now busy and prosperous. The change has been almost magical. A larger amount of commercial business is done here than in any city of the Union with the same population. It has been a common expression in the West that railroads have ruined more countries than they have made—except the termini, and the Pacific Railroad is probably noth-ing exceptional in that experience. This city, from being in a sense the terminal point of both the Union and Central Pacific Railroads, profits from them both, and foreshadows a future of greatness that will astonish older countries.
Whatever may be thought of Brigham Young, from a Christian standpoint, and whatever he may personally be, he is at least entitled to thanks for the foundation he has laid of a permanent existence in this before desert country. He has exhibited an intermixture of excellent sense with his dreams and revelations, and the society now to be reared upon the foundation that he has laid will reap many bless-ings from his first labors, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado were first great in minerals and tediously slow in agriculture. Utah, through Brigham's guidance and pluck, reached first after the solidities of life. Her citizens were beyond all temptation and heroically contended against the discovery of the precious ores. As a consistent fanatic, Brig-ham is probably the most magnificent specimen of his age. A hard-shell Baptist is nothing to him; he is the ne plus ultra of everybody who ever believed in the past and fought for it. When he "shuffles off this mortal coil" he should be embalmed with the Pharaohs. He has opposed the mining development with great bravery, and with commendable courage he has battled with overwhelming fate. Probably, to-day, he even deludes himself with the thought that he is still victorious; but the illusion is that of the three-score years and ten that is yearly growing younger. N'importe, the work goes bravely on, and that is the subject of my letter.
I look with amazement upon the change in Utah. I see around me a new people, a new country. The very atmosphere is pregnant with liberty and Amer-ican breathings. It is no longer burdened with the isolation of Abyssinia and the dismal forebodings of dare-you-do-so. I recognize in the Utah present nothing of the past but its landmarks. Filling up here, settling down there, developing this, and ex-ploring that, Utah is fast hastening to be a part of the United States. Wherever I look, to whatever I listen, there is evidence of substantial progress, and a voice crying that Utah is no longer a wilderness. I confess to a great gratification in witnessing the tri-umph of the country's institutions and thoughts.
In every direction the germs of liberty and ra-tionalism are showing themselves. Men who were but a few years ago the most abject in fanaticism and devoted in their attachment to the great chief high priest, and conspicuously zealous in the propa-gation of the principles, doctrines, and institu-tions that have made Utah world-renowned, are to-day in the very antipodes of their past selves; and to this number there is a daily increase. Every-where this is evident throughout the Territory. A glorious revolution is moving steadily onward, car-rying unmistakably in its course the blessings of peace and prosperity. Unlike the spasmodic efforts of personal discontent, this change bears with it the stability of principles that never perish and the pro-gress that knows no revulsion.
To every effort from without Mormonism has hitherto been invulnerable; but the revolution that is working such wonders reaches its weaknesses and attacks its unfounded pretensions. As day follows day, events follow each other, developing the most thorough and complete overthrow of the Mormon hierarchy. The most radical of reformers could desire nothing better. In a few short years Brigham Young and Mormonism will be but a religious sect shorn of the pomposity of authority that has hitherto marked its career in the mountains for the last twenty years. Decay requires time as well as growth; but it is easier to fall to pieces than to rise into being, and so the decline of Mormonism will be vastly more rapid than has been even its remarkable growth. Every stone loosened from an edifice weakens its neigh-bor, and now that the infallibility and prophetic character of Brigham is openly questioned, debated, and denied, the whole superstructure that leans upon him will shake and totter to the ground. It is this that I witness to-day; his prestige is depart-ing, the authority of his bishops is questioned, and men are doing as they please, without inquiring for permission or counsel of Brigham or his priesthood. Never more emphatically and truthfully could it be uttered than here—“the world wags."
THE AGENCIES AT WORK.
There seems a harmony of providences in the grand work of deliverance for the people of Utah from oppressive evils and the fanaticism with with which they have been martyred. Everything contributes to that end. The railroad was the death-knell to Brigham's reign. As it advanced, rebel-lion in his own camp, reared its head, and the com-pletion of the iron-way was the opening of the rich-est mines on the continent. The kingly Brigham foresaw all this, and for years fought it bravely. His ready acceptance at last of the inevitable rail-road was but the shrewdness of the man. In '62 California volunteers marched into the Ter-ritory, and Brigham, unable to prevent it, became a joint contractor for the transportation of their baggage and stores, and supplied them with flour on the way to "the City of the Saints." He has avowed and denied alternately the existence of precious ores within the territorial domain, just as occasion required, and when he has avowed that much, has predicted that none should be discovered except it was over his faith. Were he but ten years younger he would soon be the largest claim owner in the Territory; but his blood chills more readily than of yore, and he sensibly betakes himself more devotedly to the instruction of the faithful.
In the days when dissatisfaction was ostracism and leaving the Territory was a three months' journey, ''apostacy " was a dangerous experiment. It de-manded huge sacrifices which few could make, and the whisperings of development were frequently stifled. In those dark days free speech was un-heard; but the brighter noonday illumines now ''the valleys of the mountains," and men and women breathe with freedom. Mistakably, I think, hun-dreds of the dissatisfied with Brigham leave the Territory to follow the younger Joseph Smith in Illinois. But mistakably or not, the fact is suggestive of the change; the great iron highway across the desert has wrought a marvellous work. The secessionists who stay at home are daring, and sail into the fol-lies and unfounded pretensions of the apostles with an energy that speaks of confidence in triumph. This handful of men have shaken Brigham beyond anything that he ever expected to experience, and at his death thousands who now apparently hold to him will slide from his successor as from a changing dynasty. Long years of association and the formula of habit still keep them in the old groove; but the tears shed around his bier will be the last of their attachment to his Mormonism. Polygamy has woven and entwined around the hands and feet of many a net-work from which it is almost impossible for those enmeshed to extricate them-selves; but with Brigham's iron will removed, if Congress does not do so before, many a captive will be set free. It is this consciousness that is felt to-day and seen in the changed actions of both men and women.
THE MINING INFLUENCE.
Walk through the city, pass through our hotels, behold the faces of strangers from all parts of the earth, see windows filled with hundreds of speci-mens of rich ores, witness those long mule trains slowly wending their way through our streets bear-ing their precious burdens to the railroad depot, and see the laboring man with greenbacks in his hand at the merchant stores, and there you have the quiet revolution that is transforming Utah from poverty to affluence, from mental slavery to intel-lectual grandeur.
A WOMAN SPEAKS OUT.
The Tabernacle has no more terrors, the espion-age of ''the teachers" is rebuked, and the bishops command no more—they solicit. Women who have lived a thousand martyrdoms raise their heads with the consciousness of their, at least, equality to man, and see a time at hand when the aspirations of the purest of natures can be gratified with the sense of their ''lord's" appreciation of a helpmeet in one. The younger offspring, who never knew the Gentile world, spurn the system that has caused the suffering to their mothers, and boldly tell their hatred of the plural life. A daughter of the greatest of the apostles thus expresses herself In the Tribune:
With me the day of dupedom and of ''infallible priesthood" is at an end. I can see the dawn of freedom from the iron rulings of a priesthood, who have so long kept my sex in absolute servitude. I could name hundreds of women who to-day dare not say their souls are their own.
This is the language of a brave girl who saw a gentleman assaulted by ten ruffians because he was a Gentile and dared to escort her to the theatre and back, when even she was with him with her brother's consent. A few years ago she could have found no voice to utter her grief, but with the change of the times she fears nothing, and scath-ingly rebukes them thus:
About ten cowardly villains, with handkerchiefs over their faces to keep their guilty countenances from being recognized, completely surrounded us, held a pistol to Mr. Moore's head, and violently seized and roughly held me so I could see the kind of ''infliction a Gentile gets for walking with a daughter of Zion." He was brutally struck with some heavy weapon, which prostrated him and frightened me. I called aloud for help to my father but once, when a gag was put in my mouth, and I can remember but little besides being roughly pulled and hauled to my father's house.
I write the above to give the public an oppor-tunity to get a correct statement of the dastardly outrage. I have waited eight days for some one to take up the matter and give to the world the truth, but all that has come to my observation is an article in the Daily Herald, headed ''Putting a Head On." which says, ''We have no particular fault to find with the fellow being served so."
Fine moralizing that. If Mr. Sloan indorses an attempted assassination of a gentleman for waiting on a lady to and from a theatre, or any other respectable place of amusement, I do not.
This terror of the Gentiles will soon be over. Miners are not the customers to take these midnight assaults.
THE PRESS AT WORK.
The leaders of the new movement are bold, pru-dent men. They are not fighting Brigham, but the principles he represents. The Tribune is an ably conducted paper, and every week pours its heavy shot into the institutions antagonistic to the free-dom of the people and the development of the coun-try. The Mormon press is tame, and only interest-ing in its blackguardism. To the aid of the church the son of an apostle brought a sarcastic pen in a comic sheet, and significantly styled it "Keep-a-pitching-in." This, the last of follies, has provoked another into life, that appeared on Saturday under the name of Diogenes. Fancy the lantern of the philosopher moving into the dark re-cessess of Utah. It is a brilliant paper, and edited by men, some of them still in the church. Evil days have come upon the Prophet. It opens with a ter-rible dig at Brigham's claim to infallibility in a letter from Brigham I. to "Dear Brother Pius," inviting his Holiness to Utah, with the tempting offer of a portion of Brigham's wives, as the situa-tion of the gentleman at Rome had not included the luxuries of Utah. As Brigham's infallibility was a weak and doubtful question, the holy father is kindly urged to bring his along. Every soul of these printers will lose their church heads.
