MORMON SOCIALISM.
From the Detroit Daily Advertiser.
Brutal and Deliberate Murder by the followers of Strang.—The miscreants who have gathered themselves together upon Beaver Island, under the title of Mormons, are making rapid and sure progress in the degrees of crime which lead from Adultery, Theft, Arson, Robbery to Deliberate murder.
It will be recollected by our readers, that we published during the last Winter, several communications from the island, among which was one giving the particulars of the burning of the dwelling houses of two men by the name of Bennett. These Bennetts are not Mormons, nor have they ever been; they happened to be residents of the Island, and to be owners of property there, and were men of good character and deportment. Strang, who has been in Detroit jail and is under various indictments, has long sought the ruin of these men, as well as that of other "Gentiles," as he styles them, and his threats "to drive them from the Island dead or alive," had been so often repeated as to excite no apprehension, until the burning of their houses during the past winter by him; since which event the inhabitants of the Island not Mormons, have kept a close and constant watch upon their houses and property.
The conditions upon which Strang offered immunity to these persons, was that they should become Mormons, and yield themselves up to be governed by Mormon Laws. Not seeing fit to comply with this revolting alternative, these "Gentiles" have been constantly and particularly pursued in various ways at times by mock litigation, and at other times by inroads upon their rights and property without color of law, until the last week when they assembled together to the number of 50 or more, and proceeded to the dwelling house of Thomas Bennett, armed with rifles, pistols, knives, &c., and bearing as they said a Mormon Precept, authorizing them to seize his person, and take his property. Upon their approach, Bennett closed his doors against them telling them not to enter, upon which they fired some 40 shots into the house, the effect of which was to drive T. Bennett forth to seek safety in flight, but when he had gained a few rods, he fell dead, pierced by five rifle balls and forty buck shot!!
They next pursued the other Bennett, who fled instinctively, but after going a few rods, remembered the condition of his poor wife, (who was alone in the house,) and returned to receive their shot just as he crossed the threshold. His hand was cut in two by the shot, and the wound may not be mortal. The fiends then took the dead body of Thomas Bennett, and dragging it by the hair of the head, to the boat, threw it in and compelled Samuel Bennett, the wounded man, to follow and sit down by it; they then drove the distracted woman after them into the boat, and took them a distance of five miles to the Harbor, where they held a post mortem examination upon the body of Thomas Bennett, with a jury composed of Mormons, with the exception of three persons who were “gentiles;" at which it was proposed by the Mormon jurors, to bring in a verdict that Thomas Bennett came to his death while resisting the law!! While the persons who were not Mormons, decided that Thomas Bennett was deliberately murdered. A fearful excitement prevailed towards the miscreant Mormons among the Indians on the Island, who hate and fear them, as well as among the white population who are not Mormons; and they were restrained from executing summary vengeance upon the murderers, only through the urgent advice of Messrs. McKinley, Bowers, Moore, and Dinsmore, who had persuaded them to await the execution of the laws of Michigan upon the wretches.
