The Cruelty of Polygamy,
John W. Young's wife, Libbie, has Ieft her brother's in Philadelphia, where she has been staying since she came from Utah a month ago, for Elmira, New York, where she will spend the Winter at a water-cure. She was inter-viewed by a New York Sun reporter, who describes her as petite in figure with black eyes and hair. When a girl she must have been beautiful, but now there are dark blue circles about the eyes, and there is a compression of the lips, a paleness about the nostrils, and a tremulousness of the hands, that are very painful to see. This woman is consumed by a fire of jealousy unspeak-able, or is dying of remorse and shame. In her youth and loveliness she com-pelled John W. Young to discard two former wives to secure her, and for ten years she ruled in his household, bore him several children, and was the dar-ling of his heart. Now, as her beauty begins to fade, and when she is about to become a mother for the fourth time, she finds herself supplanted by a chit of a girl with a pretty face, while hers is haggard. In answer to a question, she said: "I knew that my husband was going to marry Luella Cobb, and there-fore I left him and came home to my parents, and I will never live with him again—never, never." She spoke vehe-mently, although she was almost sob-bing. After a moment she said, and there was something of pride in her face, "But don't you imagine that he married that girl for love. No, my hus-band loves me. It was ambition and in fulfillment of a promise made to his father on his death-bed. His father wished John to succeed to his place in the church, and, that he might do so, made him promise to become a polyga-mist. His marriage to Miss Cobb was his first step in execution of the promise, and, as be thought, to his father's seat. But he has been disappointed. He was not chosen to succeed his father, and now he bitterly regrets the step he has taken, and almost every day I receive letters and telegrams from him begging me to return. I treat them with con-tempt. I will never go back to him. I will be the wife of no man who would give me up and break his vows to me for the sake of power." She said this with flashing eyes and quivering lips. A moment afterward she was almost weeping, as she said: "I may go back to Utah in the spring, if I live, and get my two children who are there. Then I shall return here and devote the rest of my life to the education of my chil-dren. I never believed in polygamy or Mormonism, but I loved John Young madly. I think polygamy too horrible to think of, and I made John forswear it before I would marry him."—Spring-field Republican.
