BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS SAINTS.
What they are doing, and what they think of Eastern Barbarians.
The general news from Utah, by the late arri-val, is slight and unimportant. The charges against Surveyor General Burr (already mentioned by the telegraph), come from Charles W. Moeller, Thomas W. Cooke, and Wm. H. Hooper. Moeller says that Burr has cheated him out of his wages and pocketed the money; has cheated in the surveying, in contracts, and charges for incidental expenses; one item of $1500 for clerk hire is specified. Cooke certifies that in surveying Great Salt Lake county many of the lines were never run, the stakes were never set, and the corners never seen by the surveying party; that he was frequently called upon to guess the distance to some point, such as a creek, fence, foot of a mountain, &c. &c., and his "guess" was set down in the field-notes as correct measurements by the chain; and that in surveying Cache Val-ley the surveying party not only "jumped" many lines, but omitted entirely to survey that portion of the valley west of Bear river in said valley, and did not cross the river at all. And Hooper re-lates a conversation with Charles Mogo, a contractor under Burr, who said he expected to make some $30,000, and upon being enquired of how that was possible, replied that Burr and himself were partners in the contact.
The officers of the Nauvoo legion had a grand meeting on the 28th ult., and were addressed by Young and others. The speeches are suppressed, but it stated that the officer voted to give up cavalry altogether and transform all the troops into infantry, as better suited to the exigencies of the country.
The Deseret News gives the following description of one of the Mormon sister:-"Sister Mary Phillips, of Keysville, Davis county, is now eighty-four years old, enjoys good health, and can walk twenty miles in a day. In the summer of 1854 she gleaned twenty bushels of wheat, and raised twenty bushels of potatoes; and last fall she donated a yoke of cattle to the P. E. fund for gathering the poor."
The Saints have had an opportunity to see them-selves as others see them, for on the arrival of the overland mail at Utah about the 1st of July, Brigham had them all assembled, and two readers were appointed, who for four hours entertained the people with choice and elegant extracts from the American newspapers. Inasmuch as the comments of the American press have, as a general thing, been the reverse of complimentary towards Mormon usages, it is no matter of surprise that the saints were somewhat indignant, as well as piously grieved during the reading. The Deseret News says the extracts which were read were the productions of "frenzied, beclouded and addled brain;" but this is mild language to that which Brigham himself employs. In one of his discourses he describes his enemies in this fashion:
"Those whom the government sends here are a most miserable set, and, as a general thing, they do not know enough to tell a decent lie. But this is not altogether to be wondered at, for they are under the same difficulty as we are sometimes; it is hard for them to tell a man who has got brains in his head from one who is filled with pudding. If they have not already told every falsehood about us that they can invent, they will be mighty sorry when they think of it, for if they could have told any more they would have done so. They have made and told every lie that they knew how to, and if there is any blame on them for not lying more it must be attributed to their ignorance. Government known full well the miserable non-sense and the tirade of abuse that is heaped upon us; but what do they care about it? If they had the power of putting such characters on ships, as we do, and carrying them out, perhaps they would never give them office; but they have not that faculty, as we have. We can look men out of our community, and they will run and howl, thinking that their ives are in danger."
Brigham is a first-rate blackguard; but President Heber Kimball seems to be something more, -a blood-thirsty fanatic. Hear him:-
"How will it be with our enemies? The Lord deals with them and leads them, just as much as he does you and me. Can he hold them as with a bit, the same as you can a horse? Yes, and he can put it into the hearts of that people to send up a petition here for the Mormons to buy that whole land, and we will be under no necessity of shedding blood. God does not want to shed blood without it is necessary, any more than he wants us to go and slaughter a beast when we have no need of it. But when we have need of meat, and are driven to it by necessity, then it is all right. If it is necessary that we should shed blood, then it is right. All things are right that are done according to the will and pleasure of God,"
Kimball's brain is probably turned by a contemplation of certain political and financial statistics connected with Col. Fremont. In one of his speeches he told his followers that the Colonel expended "not less than two million dollars" during the last Presidential campaign. His Cali-fornia property, (Kimball said) was rated at $8,-000,000, and a company in England had offered him $5,000,000 for half of the property which the government had ceded to him. With such re-sources it was no more than reasonable to sup-pose that Fremont had laid out $2,000,000 in elec-tioneering operations, and "perhaps five hundred thousand on the top of that." Admitting Kim-ball's premises, we do not see but him conclusion is logical and legitimate.
The Mormons know how to take advantage of the new Democratic doctrine of non-intervention. The Deseret News makes a very plausible if not conclusive argument, in reply to the American Press, in favor of being let alone. It says that the position of Utah, its lack of navigable water, and so forth, furnish no temptation for settle-ment to the "howling priests, politicians, editors and people," who are worrying themselves about Mormonism and polygamy; that the country can only be made productive by an immense outlay of labor and expense in the construction of dams, ditches, &c., &c., and that even after this great labor, its results wither and die ere maturity by the drouth, or the grasshopper and cricket. The States, on the other hand, contain "millions up-on millions of fertile acres, where rains, snows and dews distill their timely moisture; where in-sects do not ravage; where timber is plenty, good, and handily procured; where no drouths compel expensive and laborious irrigation; where the soil is fertile and facilities for locomotion and transportation cheap, easily accessible and abundant;" and under these circumstances the Mor-mons ask that they may not be plundered, perse-cuted and murdered, or dragooned into a violent change of faith; but they humanely suggest that "each accountable dweller within the extended borders of the United States, who really loves his country and her free institutions, observe the Mormon motto of 'mind your own business,' and not only 'permit all others to observe wholesome laws, do good, and worship Jehovah as shall best please each individual, but aid all in so doing, so far as may be possible." And the squatter sovereignty argument appears with (to the believers in that doctrine) considerable force, in the appeal which the News makes in the follow-ing paragraphs:-
"We are fully aware that President Buchanan and his Cabinet cannot be presumed to know the qualifications of all who are hounding them for office and a clutch at the spoils, and are thereby liable to have their best intentions frustrated. But they do know that Utah unanimously and of right wishes and respectfully petitions that his Excellency Brigham Young be continued to be her Governor, a man long and thoroughly tried and proven to be most worthy. And what Ame-rican citizen, having a due respect for the consti-tutional rights and welfare of the people, will so much as ask for the appointment in Governor Young's place, or even accept it if proffered with-out being sought? No one. Neither can any intelligent person, unmaddened by party frenzy, uncontaminated by love of office and spoils, and possessed of only a tolerable respect for the rights and feeling of others, be so wicked and malicious as to urge President Bachanan to appoint any officers in Territories, save those indicated by the choice of the people dwelling therein.
"Any governmental appointments for Terri-tories more than for States is at best but a relic of barbarous colonial usage. Such a course has no warrant from the Constitution, and hence is glar-ingly unjust and altogether unworthy a professed-ly free, liberal, and enlightened nation. And the persistent pursuit of that policy has a direct ten-dency to subvert those eternal principles tiling at the foundation of all durable, wise, and happy governments. It is also a constant insult and abuse high-handedly inflicted upon those patriotic and study citizen who forego the comforts, lux-uries, and many conveniences of the States, to go forth and turn unoccupied wastes into fitting abiding places for joyous freemen."
The Utah journalists are quite as strongly im-pressed with the advantages of their own "Sociol-ogy" as our slaveholding brethren are, and their treatises on this subject will eventually take rank with those of George Fitzhugh and Elwood Fish-er, as demonstrations that what the world con-siders the worst, is on the whole by far the best. The News lays it down as one of the chief sources of Utah superiority that office-seekers are scarce, whereas in the East they are more numerous than grasshoppers. It gives this class of people the following information and advice:
"Now, O ye loving ones abroad seeking office in Utah, ye who are panting for notoriety and fat places, will you not let a little good advise throw a slight gleam of sound sense and fair dealing into your darkened understandings, and clear your be-clouded and mistaken notions? Utah is most assuredly not a desirable abiding place for any who do not love salvation. The salaries are not high, and heretofore the pickings and stealing have not rapidly enriched even the most expert who have been sent here. The society is in no wise congenial to the tastes and habits of those who expect to continue in the indulgence of the spice 'sly cuts' recommended by christian monogamy-ists. There are no daily papers to dish up a long and dark catalogue of daily crimes, and no crimes to be served up. There is only a monthly mail at best, and often only one in six months, except from California, and you would pine yourselves away in fretting for an opportunity for sending off your slanders.
You could gain no notoriety, for we estimate all men at their precise value, and there is not the slightest chance for a red cent to pass current for a gold eagle. And if you indulge in any of those numerous peculiar practices so sashionable in your localities, such as gambling, drunkenness, profanity, &c., &c., you will be liable to be most unceremoniously introduced to the action of good and wholesome laws, greatly to your chagrin and much to your discomfit, and giving you a pre-text to write terrible things about the 'Mormons.' In short, to avoid the tediousness of minute de-tail, you would find yourselves entirely out of your element and far from congenial society, except a small clique, too insignificant to form a circle, too few for boon companionship, and almost monthly diminishing."
