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Show A METROPOLITAN VIEW. The New York Wo-ld of the lS'.h inst. contains the following sensible editorial article in regard to Utah affairs; which we commend to the Attention At-tention of the Federal officials in Utah, and especially of Judge MeKean Me-Kean : POLYGAMY IN L'TAH. It appears that Judge McKean is about as unfit a jurist as human ingenuity in-genuity could select to be a Federal Judge of Utah at the prfsent juncture. junc-ture. A judge who addresses charges ostensibly to a grand jury and really to Buncombe is not pleasant to contemplate, con-template, but a judge who under pretence pre-tence of cbarsiii" a grand iurv in Utah really charges Buncombe in the Atlantic coast, is a kind of person per-son we shall evidently get no good of. Judge McKean has been quoting to Buncombe per tho grand jury of Salt Lake, Montesquieu's saying that the naturo and principles of government are to be studied Ly way of explaining laws, wincti is a ' very good thing lor a writer on jurisprudence jurispru-dence to Bay, but not a very good thing for a Judge on the bim-n to repeat, re-peat, and the saying of the Supreme Court ot California that courts are bound to take notice of the political and social condition of tiie country in which they sit, which seems to us a maxim susceptible of much misapplication. mis-application. Judge McKean has misapplied it with great exactness. It strikes us that while he was quot ing he might have quoted with propriety pro-priety tho saying of Chancellor Bacon Ba-con that "judges ought to remember that their office is dicere and not jus dare, to interpret law ami not te make law or give law." If Judge MeKean had quoted this and acted on it he would not have Liken the trouble of delivering a tirade against polygamy in place of instructing tho jury in the law. Poly gamy in Utah is not a topic on which we are in the habit of hearing much sense talked, and McKean has plenty of precedents iu the Congressional Congres-sional Recurd for the way in which he discusses it. The case ie nut so simple sim-ple as McKean and gentlemen in Congress appear to think it. In fact it is a very difficult case. The Mor-! Mor-! nions went or were diiventoUtah I when it was the most remote and un-visited un-visited part ol the notional domain. iTi.eybuilt up there an industrious I and prosperous community, with a ! religion founded on a revelation I winch to intelligent people is a mass j of Hebraized gibberi-n, and with a j social practice which is disapproved j in all civilized nations. Tney hurt nobody but theniselv. s ami their proselytes, however, and if they I could nave helped it they would have remained in isolation until th's time. Pacific railways and new gold mines were destined to disappoint their hopes, and now they are face o t.ice with another and stronger civilization, civiliza-tion, and they must go to thu wail or the wilderness. No doubt tiny will do the latter as scon as they can, but it is rather bard to demand of them that they ehail at once abandon the results of the labor of all these years t i and leave the valley of Salt Lake as naked as they came hit i it. In the meantime polygamy i-ugi.t of course to bo discouraged by government ar.d i it- officers, and the Mormons (k j given to understand, what they do 1 ; understand already, thai ; pulygm.- ! oun community cannot .nibA-i m the midst of a moncgamous Louiinuuiiy, . , though the retirement of the poiyg- t ! anions community inmi a contest so uniqiial cannot he ttiecud siaiJenly, I without indicting o?- and distress j v i'v painful to think of. This is the view, we think, that j legislators eught to Like and judges , ' to enforce. In f;:ct, members of , Congress ran about Mcrinonism as if j Muruionism was about to pervade the1 i whole country, and pa.-s penal statutes i in hitch hattc thai one would think j they were iu danger unless they rc-' rc-' strained themselves by rigid laws of j becoming personally polygamous. And Federal judges enforce these j laws, or try enforcing them, with a stupid persistency which, it it could be put altogether into practice, would put ail the leading main members of the Mormon community into prison and turn nine-tenths of the female members of the Mormon community adrift upon the world with a brood of "children of nobody" and no legal claim to support from anybody. JSurke said he could not frame an indictment against a nation. The more courageous McKean can deliver a charge against a whole peaceable and industrious comniunily. If government gov-ernment bad any adequate notion what the difficulties of the Mormon question were, it would give up the McKean method of settling them and remove that jurist from a position posi-tion where ho can do nothing but mischief. I |