| Show CHAMELEON LAWS AND kaleidoscope RULINGS lEt IN delivering the decision of the supreme court of the territory in the snow case chief justice zane ahsu assumed med that mrs sarah snow was the legal wife of the defendant the argument on which he relied to substantiate this position was that the first fira and second wives were mamed at the same time and there therefore forer it was not a lawful marriage and consequently conse sarah uch became the legal lega I 1 wife prom from the evidence it appears that adeline was the first wife and the second is dead although the two wives vives ver each married at the sime same time there must have been priority in the ceremony and adeline being the first was the I 1 lesard legal gal wite but bat if i the logic of the judge is correct then the sarah is not the legal wife because w when en the defendant married her he also married another wife at the same time if the marriage of two in the first case made the marriage of adeline illegal then the marriage of two in the second case made the marriage of sarah ille galand so whichever way it is viewed judge zanes jumped at conclusion is wrong As to the principle by which the marriage with adeline is be can isi dered illegal the judge says nothing he does not understand the ceremony by which the union was effected nor anything about tike the order in which the knots were tied that joined the defendant and the two ladles in matrimony mon yand and is the therefore not in a position to decide upon the qa question estion of the legality i it y of the marriage v my may bit be Is asked ked why is any quibble raised in the beels decision i ion as to who is the legal wife the answer esthe evidence shows that in the very few visits paid by the defendant de to the ladles ladies named in the indictment it appears that he remained re at place two or three times about hall an hour also one witness whose testimony was afterwards very clearly disproved said that the defendant was with her at the theatre and had bad been seen riding with her in a carriage this went to establish a trifle more evidence of associating socia ting with that lady than with the others excepting minnie and so save gave a little more color to the conclusion desired the testimony given by mrs sarah snow that these visits were chiefly on business with her son alviras Alv irae who was engaged at tile the goop go op of which the defendant was superintendent was not alluded to in the decision but it was assumed that sarah was the legal wife and that the he defendant associated with her as such although he had bad not slept in her house eaten at her table occupied any apartment there for any purpose nor dwelt under the same roof with her and U s it was admitted that the defendant had lived with his wife minnie though denied that he had bad lived with any other wife doling the time named la in ane indictment chhabi tation with more than one woman as wives is assumed as a umed toy by the court courtin in order to sustain the conviction kiere here is a piece ot of the jurgess Judges Jud gess logic they were living and were WPM together er they were we re living together conclusion Wonder wonderful fitl ingenuity of reasoning judge zane meets occasionally sio nally a lady friend they are living and ana are together they are livia living together they cohabit 11 au any two persons who are living and are together coli abit according to this method of reasoning in one sense of the term this is correct but it is not correct to use the term in this cornec connect I 1 ton in IL a criminal sense A all 11 people who live in the county cohabit in that sense of tile the word but bat there is no element of criminality in their cohabitation and the cohabitation of mr snow and his wife sarah was no further cohabits kioa than that which exists in all butnar society the endeavor is made all the way through this decision to make the beatus or relationship between the parties criminal this is in direct conflict with the ruling ol the supreme court of che united states which distinctly announces to the contrary the status of polygamy it is declared is not punishable A man may aade any number of wives if he has aas not married them since the passage of the edmunds law and their relationship is not criminal unless he lives with more than one of them as his wives the charge of judge powers which was in conflict with this J judge ge Zane says was wal a given inadvertently antl Y anet dehus 1 bius admits jt it was wrong yet he falls into the same inadvertence for that is the gist of his argument wherein he attempts to establish an illegal relationship and status between thle the defendant and his wife sarah another piece of special pleading sad and transparent sophistry is judge zanes attenuated illustration of matrimonial cohabitation when the husband is a mariner or a traveling salesman and only associates with his bis wife at long intervals let any candid mind see it if any parallel or even similarity can be drawn between the two cases the mariner or traveler after return lus from abroad lives with his wife cohabits co with her dwells under the same root roof occupies the same apartment and though the intervals inte ovals of that assoil association aaion way may be long yet the fact that they do live together atten pos possible exists and thus constitutes the cohabitation but when the luan inan and his bis wife live in the same town and never dwell together under the same roof when it 1 is s publicly ab understood that aarif marital al co cohabitation h labita has ceased when the legal presumption qt of such cohabitation is set aside and demolished oy by legal leeal evidence what element of marital coball cohabitation remains s and where is the resemblance in the remotest degree between the two totally dissimilar cases in this ft decision elsion judge zane has taken another judicial ludi JAd cial iclal summersault summer sault the posit position ioa he now assumes is that if a man inan lives with a plural wife and has a legal wife living whom he supports recognizes recognize 9 as a wife and whom he occasionally visits to enquire after his children although he does not dwell under the same roof or eat or sleep with her he is bilty guilty of unlawful cohabitation in the day daynes nes case and in the musser case he enunciated a totally different principle he then took the ground that a man could live with either wife as lie he chose so long as he with but one he did not violate the law it was not only his right the judge said but his duty to maintain main his other wile wife or wives and he be could visit them in the interest of his bis children so wag as they did not cohabit la what way will turn himself inside out and double himself up and flop over next his hia I 1 chame lion definitions denni lions sod and kaleidoscope rulings divest the law of all certainty and stability there is no telling what fresh absurdities will be evolved from section three of the edmunds act as new cases come before the courts the law means one thing today to day and another thing tomorrow to morrow judges eat their own words go back oo on their own rulings deny their own definitions only one on ahing ebing is sure and that to is that a mormon it placed on trial arm will be convicted nothing will be permitted ted to at stand mad in 14 the he way ot of that result the mob that murdered joseph the martyr cried it law cannot touch him powder and ball shall the word is changed but the process is similar if law connot reach them charges and rulings shall othe object in view is to make the mormons cormons Mor mons deny the sacred covenant revealed from heaven by which they have married wives for time and all eternity everybody familiar witti the proceedings of the courts has been made to see that principle purity chastity virtue morality have nothing to do with the present crusade it is waged to break down the mormon religion and get men to deny their faith the end justi justifies flos the means seems to be the policy that guides guide irwill it will apparently succeed in nome bom small degree tar lor a time and then miserably and utterly and aad overwhelmingly fall fail it is ia the policy of sin and will prove the policy of shame suffering ug will come to a few triumph and power will come to the cause cause for which they endure wrong but who can tell the infamy that will cover the chief dvork workers in this merciless and cruel conspiracy sp iracy |
