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Show UTAH'S "UNWRITTEN LAW." There has boou a good deal of talk within the last month about the unwrit-ton unwrit-ton law, meaning in general that men arc not, as a rule, punished by tho I courts when M103' kill the bekaj'cr of a wife or a daughter. As to the force ( of this unwritten law, however, it varies veiy largely according to the locality, aud according to circumstances that ma- bo shown in the particular case. It is noteworthy that the operation opera-tion of the unwritten law is made more effective and absolute by I ho ruling of tho court in tho Thaw case, and which was followed in the Loving enso in Vir ginia. So various is tho application of this unwritten law that it may bo said that each locality has a special interpretation inter-pretation of it for itself. In Utah, however, tlic uuwrition law doos not apply alone to such offenses as aro usually embraced in it clsowhoro. Here tho unwritten law is not onl" that people who commit homicide, such as would in other places bo justified by the 1 unwritten law, aro to be freed by it, but 1 thoso who commit offenses that arc j against the laws of God and man must 1 uot be arraigned in court aud must be I protected so far as possible from any ' annoyance by the law or b' the courts in the practice of their lawlessness. , Utah's unwritten law refers, therefore, 1 not siinph to the matter of homicide, but is extended to the protection of sexual vice in the particular referred lo? A113 one who, uudor the sanction of what was formerly the avowed church doctrine of plurality of wives, or any one who, having entered upon that lawless law-less life, now continues to practice it j.he law namo for this practice being unlawful cohabitation must not only bo shielded by the community at largo and spoken rcspoctfully of by everyone, every-one, but must 011 every opportunity which permits of it, bo paraded as a foremost citizeua man of honor, probity and piety, entitled to tho respect of all, and an exemplar to be held up to admiration ad-miration in the Sunday-schools of the dominant sect and in .the "religiou , classes" of that sect. j It is nolcworth' that among the chief ' defenders of this Utah unwritten 'law aud tho chief of those who make' au outer" against any ouo who objects to it, are among the fiercest in denuncia-l denuncia-l l ion of the unwritten law , in other States. For example, the Deserct News recently was insistent, strenuous, and loud-mouthed in denunciation of the ac- quittal of Judge Loving, denouncing at asan outrage- on justice. Whether it was or not, however, is not so much a matter of concern in Utah as in Virginia. Vir-ginia. Tho unwritten law of Virginia is a matter for Virginiaus to attend to. Jt is not especially an acuto subject, so .far as wo are concerned here. But Utah's unwritten law is a matter of j concern to every one. j When the Dosorot News made its out- I ciy against the application of the un- j written law in Virginia, The Tribune re- 1 plied that we had better attend to our own affairs and cast the bcanr out of our own c"e rather than to be insistent I upon our Virginia brother casting the ' mote out of his eye. It is Utah's unwritten un-written law that; is cspcciall obnoxious here, and deleterious lo our progress and to tho communit- moralit-, Along with an denunciation of tho unwritten law by an public writer or speaker in Utah, lot us also have a denunciation of the unwritten law of Utah as well as of the uuwrition law of Virginia or of an- other State. Let. us clean "our own house first before we undertake lo r.laan the houses of our neighbors. Lot tho unwritten law of Utah be abolished first of all by public domain! and acclaim ac-claim in Utah, then ilwc have time and opportunit we can demand of our sister sis-ter States that. U103' also clean house. But until "wo are clean ourselves, let us not make an outcry that our neighbors neigh-bors arc far from spotless. Utah first, and then other States as they come. ft is said that the laic Francis Murphy Mur-phy induced oightcen million persons to sign tho temperance pledge; but many a man would sa" that tho one-oightcen-milliouth part of the whole lot, with whom he is very intimately acqtiniutcd, is sometimes willing to dcn3 his signature. signa-ture. That Colombia has agreed to agree with tho United States over the Panama Pana-ma canal matter lifts a heavy burden from Uncle Sam's shoulders and one, ' likowise, which he hadn't realized he I was eanying. |