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Show THE MORMON PROSKCUTIO.NS. Salt Lake City, Nov. 23, S71. For ten days I have been sitting in tbis fair lap of the mouutains. studying politics, morals, and social life. I have crossed the threshold of both prince and peasant; have been admitted admit-ted to free conference with both tbein that bear the mace of Federal authority author-ity and them that are the objects of its present exorcise hereabouts, and I retire under tho tirm impression that the "saints" will triumph over the "sinners" barring the loss of polygamy, poly-gamy, which few care to retain, and which the community will voluntarily leave behind them in due season. But the two sides yet wax warm in spirit, and I can hardly do better than tell the story of a little chat I had with the right-hand men of his Highness, Sir Administration EX CATTCEDRA. As one whose vocation is to inform ' the people on what I see and hear, so was 1 presented to Chief-Justice Mc- Kcan soon after my arrival. Accord-, Accord-, ingly, after decent delay, I found my ! way into his Honor's presence at his own modest residence. He greeted me i with apparent cordiality. The judge seemed to readily comprehend com-prehend the passing chief wish of my heart to learn what those whose cars first catch the whisperings of power know and will tell and to my query about "intruding," responded, "Certainly "Cer-tainly not; 1 have no state secrets, and am ready to nfl'ord correspondents all important information, only nskiog that truth be adhered to (which has sometimes been otherwise) in the de-I de-I tail of facts, and that fairness be exer-I exer-I eised in passing judgment upon the ! present confliot between law and law-, law-, lessness. Some correspondents upon i matters here have taken gross liberties 1 with the privato character and conduct I of government officials, and wrenched truth from ite hinges to put a false construction upon their public acts, : which you will see is an injustice both , to us and to I he country. i Correspondent Gossip asserts that late instructions have come to hand to quietly discontinue tho arrests of polygamous poly-gamous Mormons on charge of lascivious lasciv-ious cohabitation, for the postponement postpone-ment of similar and more serious cases already docketed, and for a general loosening of the somewhat fierce- hold the administration has lately taken upon Mormonism. Is there any truth in these reports? Judge McKean None whatever. The administration has no voice or bearing in these trials. I am here solely to do my duty as a judge to hear and try whatever complaints come before mo. I am not the indicting power; it is not for me to say into what and whose misdemeanors the grand jury shall inquire, nor upon what cvi-i cvi-i dence they shall find a "true bill." , Nevertheless I have that faith in the ! present grand jury whioh induces the belief that whorever wilful violations of law are found to exist indictments will follow. I have never received the slightest instruction from Washington as to the course I should pursue in these matters. As a judicial officer, sworn to fearlessly and impartially administer ad-minister the laws in this quarter, J would not tolerate for one moment "in-slruotion" "in-slruotion" from any source. I should repel the attempt to instruct with that indignant treatment which all pure-minded pure-minded and virtuous judges would recognize re-cognize to bo its only deserved fate. Tho trials of Mormons under indictments indict-ments for "lascivious oobahitation" and for "murder" will proceed without delay, unless the public prosecutor and oouusel for the defence unite in asking a continuance, or other good cause is assigned. I can assure you there is no disposition to loosen any hold the law now has upon its bold and rebellious subjects in these parts. ".Enforcement ".En-forcement of the laws" is our motto, and our only ono. Before coming hero I foresaw and expected all this howl about "corruption" and "rings;" and am only disappointed that the scream of tho hurt birds is not louder, and that matters have been able to proceed ! so far so quietly. C. Suppose you shall consider that a full "enforcement of the law" requires re-quires the execution or imprisonment of llrigliam Young, Mayor Wells and other leadiug Mormons, and yon sb,aH, as of course you will, take steps to "enforce" on those terms, is it not probable that there will bo "hurt birds" to "scream" on both aides?-? that physical force will bo called, in as umpire ? J, MnK. Not at all. There is not the slightest cause for alarm. Those people are coming to understand that such a government as the United Slates exists, and that Utah is within its jurisdiction and her citizens amenable amena-ble to its laws. Polygamy will be wiped out; no trace of its former ugliness ugli-ness shall remain to reproach this country in the presence of other nations; na-tions; we shall compel the return of Brigham Young, when we want him .for trial both on the charge of lascivious cohabitation and murder; he will be tried by the same laws as would be the humblest citizen charged with the same offences, and if found guilty will be made to sutler the penalties imposed by law, without regard to his "previous "previ-ous condition" or temporal and spiritual spirit-ual titles, and yet there will be no disturbance beyond street gossip, and the temporary sputter of a frothy press. Mormon interests are too great they hive too much money invested here, love money too well, and priac peace too highly to voluntarily consign this j city to ashes, or, by attempted iritcr-j iritcr-j furence with the complete "enforce-j "enforce-j mcnt of tho law," to hazard its safety ! and provoke its destruction as a mili-i mili-i tary necessity. I tell you again (with 1 an emphatic shake of tho dexter f'ore-i f'ore-i finger) that crime here will be pun-i pun-i ished as elsewhere; and yet no man will be hurt who does not deserve to i be. You can make a note of that, and I remember it when w meet in after I years. C. But do you not reeognire the fact that it Mormon leaders willed it. government officials, hostile Gentiles, and the little handful of 500 troops at Camp Joug!;is would be entirely at the mercy of ten thousand armed men, whom they could gather on a day's notice, and who, if at all, would fight as doing God's service and with a Cromwellian zeal'.'' , J. McK. Yes; we know all that, but we do not believe they will venture upon open hostilities with the United States authorities, as the final result would certainly bo most disastrous, if . not utterly destructive, to them. I C. Of course you have not yet heard the statements of Hickman in open court; but from what is known of his history before the grand jury, and from the commonly accepted character . of the man, do you think that Young and others could be fairly convicted of , murder on his sole testimony? J. McK. That is a matter I do not deem it needful to consider. I am satisfied that there exists, and can be made available, an abundance of corroborating cor-roborating testimony to meet all the purposes of the government. And, moreover, that is a question exclusively in the hands of the jury. I never allow al-low m3'self to intimate to a jury, in charging upon the law, whether in my judgment acquittal or conviction ought to be the result, though I cannot avoid sometimes holding very decided private convictions; and I am aware that it is far too common for the bench to usurp the functions of the jury by weaving its convictions of fact into its elucidations of law. C. It is conceded, I believe, that the acts now prosecuted as crimes have existed in tho same force and have been practised with the same openness for years as now; why have they not earlier been judicially noticed? J. McK. You can answer that as well as I; it is simply that the condition condi-tion of the country has been such as to render the attempt injudicious and wholesome results impracticable. C. Is there not a statute of the ! United States making polygamy penal, and under which it might be punished, without, aa is now so largely done, imputing im-puting to the oourt a design to distort a local statute of Mormon make into an engine for the destruction of precisely pre-cisely what they sought to protect by it. J. McK. There is a law passed by oongress in '02 making polygamy bigamy big-amy and punishable as such. But in prosecuting under that law, to insure conviction, actual marriage must be proved a thing which, from the strict Becrecy of its ceremony, has been found impracticable. I am told by major Hempstead, the former government govern-ment attorney, that a grand jury once sat for several consecutive months earnestly seeking to find indictments under the congressional law; and that in all the host whom the world recognized recog-nized as liviDg in polygamy, not one polygamous marriage was it possible to prove. So you see the necessity of relying on local statutes and snaring these evil-doers in traps of their own setting. The charge of lascivious cohabitation co-habitation is much more easily sustained. sus-tained. C.Why, men freely admit to me the number ol' their wives; can they not be convicted on their own admissions admis-sions ? J. McK, I was not aware that any admissions of the kind were ever made, and still question if they come in a shape to be considered sound evidence. evi-dence. .- Uut 11' these Mormons are actually actu-ally married to more than one wife, can their living with them as wives be justly and lawl'ully considered lascivious cohabitation, and they be liable to punishment pun-ishment both as bigamists and. as lascivious las-civious cohabitators ? J. McK. Certainly, sir; there can be but one lawful marriage, and any living together of man and woman beyond be-yond that is lewd and lascivious cohabitation cohab-itation and also bigamy, if under marriage. mar-riage. A REFLECTION OR TWO. B My interview with Hickman the Grst man on the court side of the house I gave in my last ; this account Of stock, taken with the second member of the firm, induced the belief that his sudden breadth of fame will find a rival in its brevity; and I begin to doubt the probability of the "ring" working altogether "on the square." His honor bowed mo out with the utmost ut-most of courtesy and a modest interlarding inter-larding of our parting amenities with something about not wishing to be quoted in a manner that would look as if this interview had been of his seeking. seek-ing. I disclaimed all such designs, and here aver that it was miue to seek and his to grant. I walked away reflecting re-flecting on what I had heard, but could not avoid contrasting the judge's remarks re-marks about "no cause for alarm" and tho "impossibility of disturbance" with the word that roached me from a very authentic source that, when tho arrest of Brigham Yoong, a month ago, was about to transpire, both the judge and tho governor indulged in the strange precaution of removing their families from this oity to Ogdeu, and were the real authors of the dispatches then sent east about a Gentile hegira. Perhaps courage grows rankest in tho garden of greater danger. Then, with one eye full of what the judge said about the oneness of polygamy and lascivious cohabitation co-habitation and tho invalidity of such marriages, I mention, as a matter of record in this court that, in a pending application for divorce by a seventh wife, he entertained tho cause and granted her alimony. Querios ; Is divorce necessary to dissolve an invalid marriage ? Docs not granting alimony recognize the seventh marriage as valid in law until broken by law ? If so, can it be lascivious cohabitation? And if this latter be true, ought a moneyed alimony to be the woman's reward and the man s penalty ? Again, too, 4. recalled the careless uttcranco of a "ring" disoiplo in my hearing, that his eyes had winked but a limited number of times einoe they verily looked upon a letter from Aker-man's Aker-man's cookshop to his honor, ooin-mendiog ooin-mendiog highly his honor's achievements achieve-ments in Utah to date, and authorizing authoriz-ing him to appoint counsel of his own choice for future labor in this same vineyard. Maybe there is some other name for this than "instruction," but that is what I call it, in my poverty of terms of a finer point. Cor. N. Y. World, Dec. IJ. |