Show we ware indebted to elder eider or orson orbon son pratt for a impy copy of the follow following highly hiter inter esting eating letter leeter to ta governor Shaff cr aud and though we cannot endorse the writers views in every particular we have much pleasure in giving the letter publicity evincing as it does far broader unprejudiced and ideas of the great question of patriarchal marriage than we usually meet with within in those who diner with us in religious views it ia is but justice ho however wever to governor shaffer to say that from the beat information we have hive been able to obtain the garbled statements contained in tha the th telegram upon which the writer bases his remarks do not contain the real sentiments of that gentleman with regard to td the situation in this territory A letter from win K Griff griffin ln of equality illinois to gov shaffer Shaff of utah I 1 saw a few days since a brief notice of your arrival in utah and of your publicly expressed intention of enforcing the laws of the united states there inri ingi which w ch I 1 suppose mens means me ns more especially the laws against polygamy though an obscure citizen I 1 am induced by considerations of humanity to offer for your serious bontem contemplation pla pia tion tiou some criticisms upon the present popular theory of enforcing laws simply because they ate ore laws and also to offer some apology for the venerable institution of polygamy it was not long ago said by a person of no less eminence than the president of the united states tates tf that the surest way to get rid of a bad law Is to enforce it this thib may be true but it i often a very cruel way the breaking up of the polygamous families of utah may afford fine amusement for executive officers and for those by whom they are employed but it will prove far otherwise to the victims the tho women and infant children who shall be deprived of their natural male protectors and shall be cast adrift upon an ua un sympathising sympathizing world by your official acts will seem to appeal to the human ty of their persecutors as did the frogs in the fable you do not consider that though this may be sport to you it ia is death to us the story of their wrongs will go down upon the pages of history to be judged by a more liberal and enlightened age than this the long continued toleration of free speech and of a free press has been highly favorable to the development of conscience and reason but it has greatly weakened the authority of precedent of ancient standards and rules of government ern ment free discussion has proved unfavorable to conservatism by the more progressive and enlightened rea boners enacted laws are no longer regarded as legitimate objects of blind veneration the corrupt source from whence they spring precludes any such claim upon our unqualified respect laws are undoubtedly necessary but they area are a kind of necessary evil and require to be enforced with caution and discrimination if laws were always enacted exacted by the unanimous voice of the whole people there would be some excuse for their rigid enforcement but there is often a numerous and still oftener a very intelligent tell igent minority whose voice in the government ia Is entirely ignored are not the conscientious convictions of such minorities entitled to some som e respect that a government which at every step of its progress ruthlessly casts overboard a grumbling minority can 1 long iong ong survive is a problem not yet satisfactorily fa facto rily solved time and experience h haye have aye nye exposed grave defects lying at the heart of our political system and the wise and prudent magistrate will not be too anxious to subject so imperfect lm perfect a system to an unnecessarily severe test teat it is 19 indeed a hopeful omen that of late years executive officers jurie juries bete sete etc not assume the responsibility of exercising a kind of discretionary a power they adhere less leasly lily than of old to heathenish oaths to demagogue begotten laws and allow themselves vIes instead to be governed somewhat by the higher faculties of reason and conscience this increasing influx euice erice of the thel public conc cone conscience ienco lenco has a tendency to diminish to some sonie extent the political evils complained of it seems to ine me a self evident moral axiom that a criminal law should never be enforced simply because it is io the law if it is ii not obvious that some good will result to individuals or 0 to community at lar cargor gon kor gor som some e evil be averted aberte id then it is certainly better that thelah the law in that tha t particular case cabe caie should remain a dead letter than that its it pen penalties s should be inflicted upon our peaceful peace fui ful well weil dle dib posed and useful fellow elti eitl citizens zens with a conscientious intelligent and independent magistrate the righteous ness of a criminal law will alays be a subject of consideration he will look upon enacted laws simply as instruments for the enforcing of what he believes to be justice he will regard such laws JAWS not as his wa masters but as his servants and he will enforce them or not as justice seems beema to demand had you been an executive officer in the days of the salem witchcraft possessing at the same time your 1 resent intelligence telli gence would you have lent your ybur aid in inflicting the murderous penalties for that imaginary crime simply bemuse you were bound by your oath and by the law to do soa so and did it ever occur to you that we may even at this day have in our statute books laws which to our descendants years he hen cewill 1 app appear ear quite aa as absurd iano if not t quite q U ite BO so cruel rue as does the witchcraft law of four our purl puri puritan an forefathers now appear tous tour to us these teachings you will regard as political heresy but they will impress you 0 I 1 hope as being tempered with hul hur humanity ril rii ty and common sense they are the unwritten laws of conscience without whose humanizing influence many of our ritten wilten to laws lawa would become an unbearable oppression conscience is an obstinate opponent when the awakened conscience of the nation pronounces against the law that law is ignored at once and repealed at leisure such was the fate of the fugitive slave law and such I 1 hope and predict will be the fate of the not I 1 less ess inhuman an ti polygamy law which you propose to enforce it is gradually becoming a political maxim among the more advanced and logical thinkers everywhere thad that tho the social and sexual arrangements voluntarily entered into between individual men and women are not fit subjects for legislative dictation within the last few years there has been a marked tendency in the public mind to favor a more liberal and natural marriage system and to look with comparative indifference upon the frequent violat violation loner ionEr of our stringent sexual laws laws against fornication adultery and bigamy are no doubt to be found among the statutes of every state but it ills is only occasionally and in extreme cases that such laws are now enforced itis ivis it is only when it is obvious just rights have been encroached upon or when somebody has been damaged by fraud by deception by contagion that legal steps are taken to interfere with sexual freedom and this indulgent course has not been pursued by the local authorities alone but by bythe the general government aa as well the fact that the mormons cormons have been suffered for thie the last twenty years to openly practice polygamy ff is a conspicuous illustration I 1 of the generous policy which has bag during that period emanated from the highest wisdom of the nation had congress been determined to crush cru shout out polygamy in utah it could have done so long ago much more easily than at present As to the cormons mormons their religious and social concerns I 1 know little except what has come from the pens of their enemies for rarely indeed have our public journals been open to their defense I 1 do not propose to discuss the merits of their religion of which polygamy by them la Is claimed to be a part in the eyes of an impartial government government govern meni a mans convictions are equally sacred whether he calls them religion or gives them some other name it is sufficient clent elent to say that to the minds of the cosmopolitan goliman go litan the original story of joseph smith mith and the gold bible is not more incredible or absurd than is the story of that other and more ancient joseph who dreamed that an angel told him hina that his intended wife was pregnant by the holy ghost and upon which dream our own so called religion was originally based but the question of polygamy in a worldly sen een sense bense sells Is one that can no longer be evaded the mormons cormons are not the only party interested in the older elder states there are hundreds of thousands of marriageable women to whom marriage under the system is impossible there are no unmarried men for them these patient sufferers victims of a cruel undoubtedly have rights which we as humane and honorable men are bound to respect I 1 do not mean the right to vote but I 1 mean the right to fulfil fulfill unharmed the highest destiny of their existence the right to become mothers without incurring public disgrace and without subjecting thein themselves selves and their male protectors to the penalties of en ie Ted lag lai 1911 Is ii abdine of thes thea women and highest aspirations aspiration sure bre are ignored by our laws by our religion and by vy our conservative opinions should embrace the new religion of mormonism which opens its doors to the belef of their phy i wants and onera offers a sovereign bove gove reign preventative venta tive against involuntary old oid mald maid rsm tam and lind involuntary widowhood be assured that the wisest and most honorable way and pr probably babiy bably the surest to prevent an overgrowth of polygamous mormonism is to admit free and fair competition t b make ample legal provision for the marital wants of our surplus women ev everywhere ry where if a system cub inage were legalized restraining or punishing those only wl wh should be unable or unwilling to make due provision for the results of their sexual alliances I 1 have no doubt the general welfare and happiness of both sexes would be greatly pr bromsted prom ted and that the practice of foat icide lind and promiscuous prostitution would be b vastly diminished there are no boult men enough who are both able and willing to provide for and husband all the marriageable women and the law by interfering with this natural and wholesome coalescence between the sexes indirectly lends its aid to that foul monstrosity or of our civilization professional prostitution and its necessary concomitant the venereal contagion in a community cammi anity the most frightful bugbear which presents itself to the imagination at the first thought of a plurality of wives ii female jealousy but it is questionable question ibie ible after all whether female jealousy which we fiu fin nind find a so rankly developed under our single system Is not more the result of education than of instinct it is indeed probable that this evil passion has by py the fostering care through successive generations of law religion and public opinion been nursed into a monstrous morbid growth in countries where polygamy has long been an established fact it ia is doubtful whether the man of I 1 several wives is so much annoyed in noyed by female jealousy as is hib hie christian antipode with his single wife there is really nothing in the nature of th things to justify the passion of jealousy in woman A mans natural love for his offspring offa offid pring begets in him a desire to recognize that offspring beyond suspicion this justifies him in watching over his female compan companions foLs and scrupulously guarding their exclusive loyalty to him but with woman no such legitimate cause of jealousy exists As to the maternity of her children she cannot be in doubt she sho cannot be cheated while she has many conceivable opportunities tuni ties of defrauding the reputed father of her child with a counterfeit he has no conceivable op opportunity or of defrauding her his fahrer fatherhood depends upon indirect and circumstantial stant isi lal evidence her motherhood stands upon the incontestable evidence of her own senses polygamy it is evident has a natural tendency to improve the race while it is equally evident that monogamy has no such tendency this is an advantage worthy of the grave consideration of the progressive philanthropist under dera a free polygamous system superior men would attract a greater number num nen ber of women than would be attracted by inferior men and they would consequently ly father a larger proportion of the children thus thua causing a perpetual proportional increase of superior children the restricting of each maia man to a single wife places a wife within the reach of the lowest specimen armale of maie male humanity with the chance of propagating his like to the same extent that is enjoyed by the high highest est eat specimen it is ft notorious fact that there are men not a few who either from natural defects or acquired vices are quite unfit for husbands quite incompetent as the guardians of families yet by our present legal ze 10 stra ints excellent women have often I 1 as the only alternative to accept of such with the sure prospect of a life of poverty and of a progeny degraded and ignorant were men and women left ion in fix a measure free to act according to the dictates of reason we should haye have less of 0 that morbid sen sentimentality timen which is born of sexual starvation nursed by novel reading and doomed to find its grave in the marriage bed woman would no longer sell her birthright for a mesa of pottage she would no longer sacrifice the prospective welfare of her children for the transient blent gratification of her own selfish passions it inay may never become entirely practicable but it is certainly desirable that children should be begotten by the best beat specimens of male malet humanity and be borne of the best beef female specimens the natural tendency of a judicious system C proximate to human perfection in this way the considerate polygamist looking forward to the welfare of bf his offspring would encourage chi child d bear ing with bismore ni his more smore perfect wives and re strain it somewhat in those less fortunate another advantage of polygamy would be the more equitable distribution ot of property because wealth apu would iid ild favor polygamy and polygamy would increase the number of heirs and thus would be avoided the individual inheritance of vast fortunes which is a universally ver sally acknowledged desidera desideratum turn I 1 have said but little of what might be said in apology for this time honored institution but enough I 1 hope to convince the candid reader that it ought not to be condemned without a patient hearing let it be discussed as the slave question was discussed and then we shall see what will be the verdict of the enlightened conscience of the th nation truth is always safe in a fair and open conflict it has not been made to appear that the tho mormons cormons Mor mons in their polygamous practices have encroached upon any blodys just rights it has not been li shown that their wives are less freer freel free less kindly treated or that their children are less amply provided for and educated than are the wives and children of their mono gamio neighbors where then is the justice or the necessity of invading their peaceful fi resides of violating the sanctity of their family circles to enforce a law in the makin making of which they have had no voice in conclusion then let me nae suggest that evenhanded even hanaew handed justice tempered with humanity can be |