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Show A LETTER FROM SALT LAKE. Aipong the pany of San Francisco gentlemen who visited this city recently recent-ly came C. A. Klose, Esq., publisher of the San Francisco Spectator, the official paper of the Methodist Episcopal Episco-pal Church on the Pacific coast. We were pleased to make the acquaintance of Mr. Klose, and viewed him as a gentlemen of liberal views,free thought and a broad, expansive mind. It is gratifying to find that his communications communica-tions to the Spectator concerning Salt Lake City, sustain this estimate of him. We have not room for the entire en-tire letter, but make extracts from it. Speaking of the city, he says : I notice the absence of idle or noisy men while 1 walk the streets, and though Main street with its freight teams and farmers' wagons, its thronging throng-ing crowds of busy men, women in plain dresses and bonnets, with market baskets on their arms, gaudy dressed Indians, and its general air of merchandising, mer-chandising, looks animated enough for any city, yet the quietness and stillness still-ness of a village hangs over the place. The city has 25,000 inhabitants, and contains several tanneries, grist millns woolen factories, paper mills, pail and furniture factories, large adobe and brickyards, etc.; everything bearing the impress of the thrift and industry of a people whose religious faith enjoins en-joins upon them "work," and whose honest, arduous, incessant work has changed these bleak mountain sides and these once barren valleys into a landscape blooming with fertile crops, erected this city teeming with abundance, abund-ance, and made a wilderness to blossom like the rose. We have had many courtesies shown us by the leading men ot i he city; have enjoyed buggy rides to Camp .Douglas and the surrounding country, partaken of Mormon hospitality at their firesides, fire-sides, have been to evening parties and dinners, aud on last Friday night, by iuvitation, our party attended a Mormon Mor-mon ball a. the theatre. The par-qujtte par-qujtte seats had been floored over level with the stage, forming thereby a spacious hall in which some 200 persons per-sons were dancing when we entered Large chandeliers suspended from the ceiling threw a flood of light over the building, which was finished simply and neatly in gold and white, and revealed re-vealed as happy a looking throng of dancers as ever 1 had seen. There was Brigham Young, with light complexion com-plexion and light hair, erect and graceful, grace-ful, looking furty, though really seventy seven-ty years of age; there were youths and maidens, middle-aged men and women, and children eight and ten years old, and all apparently enjoying themselves as one family. 1 noticed the absence of costly dresses and ornaments, and looked with surprise upon the plain though neat array of lawns and ginghams, ging-hams, calicoes and prints. The absence ab-sence of "round dances" was also noteworthy to me and I learned Uiat the Church forbade them. And really, when I looked at these people and saw them in their enjoyment of contra-danee contra-danee and quadrille, their Virginia reel and "Sir lloger do Coverly," I could nnt help regretting that tho waltz and polka and other questionable dances had brought disrepute upon an amusement which by some Christian churches is still called "innocent." (!ood music-, pleasant conversation and the novelty of the scene made tin: evening pass pleasantly to me. and 1 hasten to relate the end. Bight after the el j-e of a quadrille, while ail the couple." were yet iu nias on the floor, a voice called out "attention," und there, in the midst of them all, with hands uj'iifn'-d and in solemn tones an elder 'h!iered an appropriate and beautiful pra er, asking God's tilt wine upon their amusement and e'ced with the beiiodi.r ion. Thus ended the Mermen Mer-men ball. Votrrday I went to church, attended attend-ed Handay x-huul and listened te, lhe children leading and reciting their IcnWus, sang with them, played the organ tor them, and with the exception of occasionally healing tie wirds. "Latter-day Saint," to remind me, 1 quite forcot that I was anywhere eUe than in Minna street Sunday yrhool. |