Show IN How the Mormons Got Along There in the By S. A. In some respects Missouri is one of the greatest states that ever Its soil is so productive that the farmer has but to drop the seed where the soil can get hold of and with the exception of a little occasional nature does the He in an while the doctor and lawyer plod along in a one-horse The what are left of are still fairly well stocked with and the streams contain the greatest variety and quantity of fish of any in the The Missouri mule is the most distinguished domestic animal in i Missouri while not quite so famous as those of are a close the men and women are healthy and mainly and the girls did you ever see a corn-fed damsel from that If you didn't you have missed something that any description will fall far short of compensating you I tell 5 those Mo lassies are sweet The writer of these rambling lines had the distinction first opening his eyes to this world on Missouri This in itself is not a matter of much but still a fellow can't help feeling a little bit chesty when he contemplates the array of distinguished men who dawned upon the earth within the same There for Senator Thomas A. who nearly immortalized himself in one sentence when he pointing is the route to It doesn't seem much to say but was a rather stupendous sample of prediction when he said there was Benton's John C. Fre who narrowly missed getting into the great column He let go and fell down too justifying in some measure this diagnosis of his He was a pathfinder who lost his an explorer who discovered a soldier who never fought a a statesman who never made a a lawyer who v never tried a and a millionaire not worth a con there was Mark one of the funniest and meanest of and i many more who might be but won't be just now overlooking Champ the present list concluding with one Boggs the there was but who will here be given a little special In order to properly and fittingly be a servant of Satan a person must have three he must have brains enough to be able to distinguish between right and wrong he must have natural depravity enough to firmly choose the he must have sufficient inventive faculty to be to continually do something novel and striking in that In all these it is doubtful if Boggs had an and certainly he never had Occasionally the Son of the Morning must have and become a bit nervous when he saw how much perfectly his work was being Mone by Boggs could do it Like other men in he wanted his subordinates to be eff and but didn't care to have them makeT look like an As governor of Miss the things which he didn't order done to the Mormons he consented to s Among his incidental victims was Porte who was imprisoned for several months the charge of shooting at him with intent to kill ad only slightly wounding him a foul for Porter even when so full that he didn't know his' own was a better shot than that if he had ever fired at Boggs with intent to one of the meanest things that ever defiled the image of the Almighty would have ceased to be a menace to humanity then and there no Rockwell has his but shooting at wild beasts and missing them cannot properly be included in the The principal difference between Boggs of Missouri and Ford of Illinois was that the latter was afraid to do while the former was not afraid to do a dis- the reader may and yet the two mem were not so far apart after The in the early part of the last several times pitched their tents in the western part of with the hope of finding and social conditions somewhat better than in the places they had previously settled For a while their hopes were in some measure but as soon as it leaked out that they were actual upholders of the Redeemer's literal believers in Holy and strict constructionists regarding the fundamental law of the Hades began to turn loose and take a high hand in the In my younger days I used to read a good deal about ancient Rome and and what Avas done to and by and some other cus whose full name has escaped The for had to kill people in the arena to avoid being killed and once after slaying one of his victims discovered that it was his such proceedings and a lot more as bad or worse being calculated to work a fellow up during the day and make him see things at Some of the pictures of Romans had a tendency to elicit the males going around in their shirt-tails without pants or and looking deplorable enough without the savagery to which they were It all went to show that B. and for a good while A. was a healthy place to live out A few men owned including most of the and the latter had no rights at all which the former needed to The rulers were absolute and This was the condition of things A Christianity was and those who saw fit to believe in God and a hereafter were not even given the privilege of fighting gladiators in the they were turned into the enclosure with hungry lions and tigers for In that and in all others in which the reigning power or a majority of the people have been or fanatical the ushering in of a safe and sane plan of human redemption has been attended then by antagonism developing all the stages and characteristics of malice and The infidelity and inhumanity of and Nero did not begin nor end with as a matter of such characteristics are unfailing assets of every age and only in some cases and of later years association and education have here and there measurably if not altogether the malignity which otherwise would assert itself as of In the case of the they were subjected to about as much in the way of inexcusable and unadulterated diabolism as ever was upon any class of people since the dawn of chiefly because they failed to see eye to eye with the reigning power and the rabble regarding spiritual and practical It is not recorded that they ever took anything by force or but is recorded that wherever they settled it was upon ground that was either purchased or where there was no adverse and that from the very moment they pitched their tents the wilderness began to nature's crudeness and hardness were comfortable habitations and fruitful fields broke upon the scene as if by magic and in almost incredibly short spaces of time villages and towns claimed recognition upon the map previously nothing But yet they were murdered and The meager enough and bad enough at the was suspended altogether in dealing with and their numerous supplications were unheeded or treated with scornful while their leading men often without definite tried without the benefit of witnesses for the defense without the shadow of guilt being To some readers this is no a familiar It one that has not even with this inclusion been fully and perhaps never will What follows is not so The one who related this tale of woe S to me is now and if it was ever imparted to any one such person like myself up to the present withheld it from I will call the man because that isn't his r His experiences were not quite so extensive or drastic as those of some others of his because 1 he had only been driven six his home burned y his stock stolen on a dozen or fourteen he had occupied the interior of a jail anything tangible being charged against and while t he had been shot at several times the shooters were SUA bad actors that he with nothing more i TZ J hiS 1 had With some of We he Z fj had begun 7 to and pick up a little means for the support of h s family in a hired by chopping and hauling wood on shares and doing such odd jobs in the ay of carpentering as came his With it it was very poor and the wolf was a very persistent and painfully familiar object at the door-speak-mg of he worried hoped and and would doubtless have kept his powder dry if he had had such an and anything to use it One as Hanner was passing a neighboring house where dwelt one of the mob who had been conspicuous in the work of making the Mormons realize how few and far between were their rights and privileges in the and who had particularly been active m the burning of Hanner's last house and destroying all of his property that could not be conveniently The name was the He had evidently been on a trip for he was unhitching his team from the carriage preparatory to putting them Right in the road that Strong had just passed over Hanner found one of those old-fashioned silk which on examination was found to contain a goodly sum of possibly or and at this point the old man closed his the rest being left to the listener's or reader's What he did with the purse I am unable- to The rule of law and of course that whoever finds an article and lias any means of knowing or ascertaining who the owner is must act upon such knowledge or information and restore the otherwise he is guilty of Put did I not say that the law and all manner of regulations were suspended in the case these I don't know what Hanner did in the Perhaps he intuitively or by the force of circumstances concluded that the purse belonged to Perhaps having reached such immediately or soon afterward acted upon and like a blithering took the property to his persecutor and despoiler and handed it over to I perhaps Hanner did this but I prefer to give him the benefit of the |